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Wikipedia / Pinto

Pinto is a Portuguese surname. It is a high-frequency surname in all Portuguese-speaking countries and is also widely present in Spanish-speaking countries, Italy, India (especially in Mangalore, Karnataka), France and Israel.

In many languages, Pinto means "coloured" or "painted" as it derives from the Late Latin pinctus and Classical Latin pictus, and in some cases, at least from the same word in the sense "lively or restless person". It is linguistically related to the name of Christopher Columbus' ship La Pinta, meaning "The Painted One", "The Look", or "The Spotted One". Also related, though greatly diverging in meaning, is the unit of measurement pint, which comes from the Old French word pinte and perhaps ultimately from Vulgar Latin pincta meaning "painted", for marks painted on the side of a container to show capacity.

Origins

Surname of one of the oldest lineages in Portugal, according to the nobiliaries it derives from Paio Soares Pinto, documented in the cartulary called "Baio Ferrado" of the Grijó monastery, in a deed from April 1156, where he appears as "Pelagio Pinto", also referred to in the same document as "Pelagio Suariz, cognomento Pinto" or Paio Soares, "said Pinto". This knight lived on his estate at Paço in Feira, during the time of Henry, Count of Portugal. Amado de Azambuja says that he was already deceased in 1126, date on which his widow, Maria Mendes (daughter of Mendo Odoriz), sold the said estate to the Grijó monastery in her name and that of her daughters. She was the daughter and heiress of Maior Pais Pinto, married to D. Egas Mendes de Gundar, knight who participated alongside D. Afonso Henriques, in the battle of Ourique (1139). This would be the son of Mendo de Gundar.

From the aforementioned couple there was a notable spread of this surname, especially in the area of Ferreiros de Tendais, parish of the municipality of Cinfães, where the Torre da Chã was located, also known as «Torre dos Pintos».

Indeed, the Pintos maintained a prominent social position in the Portuguese landscape.

The aforementioned Torre da Chã estate was leased by the crown, at the beginning of the 14th century, to the knight Vasco Martins Pinto. According to the writer and genealogist Manuel Abranches de Soveral, the great-grandson of this Vasco Martins, called Vasco Rodrigues Pinto (known by the nickname "the one from Ceuta" for having participated in its conquest in 1415), received from John I of Portugal, on March 13, 1423, the favor of having the Torre da Chã estate free, for which until then the Pinto family paid rent to the crown.

Heraldry

There is a heraldic-genealogical legend in a 17th-century manuscript, designated "Armaria," located in the reserve collection of the National Library, folio 259 vº, which states that it is:

The arms of this lineage: A silver shield, with five red crescents. Crest: a silver leopard, armed and langued red, with a crescent from the shield on its shoulder.

The heraldic symbolism of this lineage, "five red crescents," is a clear allusion to victories over the Moors, representing the banners taken from the Saracens in combat, thus referring to the period of the Christian reconquest.

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