Tomar
Camino Portugués · Camino Portugués de la Costa
Distrito de SantarémPortugal
Here Camino Portugués and Camino Portugués de la Costa converge. It is one of the points where the pilgrim shares the way with those arriving by another route.
Of disputed origin, attested as Tomares in medieval documents. Three hypotheses coexist without any clear winner: a Gothic personal name, a pre-Roman hydronym linked to the river Nabão, or a reduplicated variant of a pre-Indo-European base.
The toponym poses three distinct problems. First: no Roman document uses 'Tomar' or variants; the ancient city referred to at this site appears as Sellium or by the hydronym Nabantia (the modern river Nabão). Second: the medieval form Tomares emerges in the 11th century, before the Templar foundation (1160), so the name cannot be attributed to the knights. Third: no obvious Romance root explains it. The Gothic personal-name hypothesis —Toumares as the name of an early medieval landowner— is the most widespread in Portuguese onomastics, but lacks firm parallels. The hydronymic hypothesis links the name to the local river; the pre-Indo-European one, still speculative, departs from an opaque tom- base. The modern form Tomar derives from medieval Tomares by loss of the -es suffix, a regular phenomenon in Portuguese apocopation.
Evolution of the name
- Nabantia (hidrónimo) pre-Roman / Latin 1st century BC — 5th
- Tomares Romance / medieval Portuguese 11th — 13th century
- Tomar Portuguese from the 13th century
Glossary
- Anthroponym
- A personal name, often used as the base of toponyms (Lucronius → Logroño, Sigerici → Castrojeriz).
- Hydronym
- A place name derived from the name of a river, lake or watercourse.
- Hydronymic
- Pertaining to hydronyms (place names from watercourses).
- Onomastics
- The linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons, places and institutions.
- Pre-Roman
- Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Sources
- Machado, J.P. — Dicionário Onomástico Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa
- Piel, J.M. — Antroponímia Germânica (Coímbra, 1960)
- Pereira, F.M. Esteves — O Tratado de Santa Iria de Tomar (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1929)
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Camino Portugués