José María

José María (abbreviated José Mª) is a Spanish language male given name, usually considered a single given name rather than two names, and is a combination of the Spanish names of Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus Christ. The separate names "José" for males and "María" for females also exist in the Spanish language. They can also combine in the inverse order forming the female name "María José" (M.ª José); that is, the gender of the compound names "José María" and "María José" is determined by their first component. The name "José María" is colloquially shortened to "José Mari", "Josema" or replaced by the hypocoristic forms "Chema" or "Chemari".

"José María", with its Portuguese language equivalent José Maria (notice the absence of the acute accent over the i in the Portuguese version) is a common name, and many famous people have this name or a similar one:

Spanish names

José Maria de Santo Agostinho

Miguel Boaventura Lucena (1889 – October 22, 1912), known as José Maria or José Maria de Santo Agostinho, was a Brazilian mystic from the state of Santa Catarina, probably the western part of the state. He was born near Curitiba, but little is known about his early life.

In 1911, he began preaching against the Brazilian state. When his rebel forces went up against the Brazilian state military and police at Banhado Grande on October 22, 1912, José Maria was killed, but the battle resulted in a victory for his followers, who declared a "holy war" (now called the Contestado War) and believed that he would be resurrected.

José María Amador

José María Amador (1781 in San Francisco – 1883 in Watsonville, buried in Gilroy, California) was a wealthy California rancher.Amador County was named in his memory.

Biography

He was born at the Presidio of San Francisco, one of the youngest of eleven children of Pedro Amador and Ramona Noriega. He very probably named his later ranch after his mother and his maternal grandfather, Ramón Noriega. He was a younger brother of Sinforosa Amador (1788-1841).

He spent his early years as a soldier and explorer, serving in the Spanish army of Nueva España, 1810-1827, then from 1827 to 1835 was mayordomo, or administrator, at the Mission San José. He was granted 4,400 acres of Mission land in 1835, which he named Rancho San Ramon.

Amador was married three times and had 22 children. He built several adobes at his rancho headquarters near Alamilla Springs in today’s Dublin, California, including a two-story adobe which was used by James Dougherty in the 1860s, thereafter named Dougherty, Alameda County, California. He gradually sold the land till none was left at his death.