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Question – Helton John Sousa de Oliveira, São Paulo, SP
Each one has a different origin! “Fulano” comes from the Arabic fulân, which means “such”. With the Arab domain over the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages, the language influenced the Spanish and Portuguese vocabularies. Around the 13th century, Spaniards used “so-and-so” as a pronoun: fulana casa (such a house), so-and-so subject (such a subject). In Portuguese, “fulano” became a noun, and even derived to the form “fuão” in Portugal. “Beltrano” comes from the name Beltrão, or Beltrand, of French origin, which became popular thanks to the chivalry novels of the medieval era. The name ended up taking the ending “ano” influenced by “so-and-so”, which at that time was already in the mouth of the people. The origin of “sicrano” is more difficult to pinpoint. The term emerged when so-and-so and beltrano were already consolidated in the Portuguese language. There are three hypotheses for the origin: “sicra” could either be a derivative of the Latin word securu, the defacement of a proper name or even a mixture of zutano and citano – equivalent to “so-and-so” and “beltrano” in Portuguese. Spanish.