Toponyms as elements of heritage and memory of the historic center of the province of Namibe (Angola)

Abstract

The research falls within the scope of toponymy studies as elements of historical heritage, addressing the motivations and naming causes of streets, avenues, squares, squares, alleys and buildings as elements of history, memory and urban landscape in the historic center of the province from Namibe. The research corpus consists of 37 elements, extracted from 1990 letters from the former Institute of Geodesy and Cartography of Angola (IGCA). The methodological narrative, concepts and classification followed the postulates of Brazilian author Dick (1990 and 1992), with a qualitative-quantitative approach. The results demonstrated a greater predominance of taxonomies of an anthropocultural nature, the toponymic classes with the highest frequencies were: axiotoponyms, antrotoponyms and historiotoponyms, respectively. It was evident that during the act of naming places in the post-independence period of Angola in the historic center of Namibe, the main motivations for attributing toponyms were: tributes to heroes of the anti-colonial resistance struggle and the national liberation struggle; political personalities; memorable dates and facts of historical, political and cultural dimension. The diversity and memory of toponyms highlight their relationship with the history of the province and the country in the pre-colonial, colonial and early independence periods. The historic center, as a heritage site, plays a social, economic, environmental and architectural role, with emphasis on commerce, tourism, festivities, residential and scientific research. Despite this, toponomastic and architectural preservation and conservation actions are necessary.