Lets make a list of the city names

[Veras]

I agree with defiler and the OP, but here are some thoughts:

I may be wrong, but I believe Vitória was named so after the Portuguese won a battle against the indigenous of Espírito Santo, so it'd mean "Victory", not "Victoria".

This only proves, however, that cities named after given names aren't common (or famous) in Brazil (maybe in other countries as well), and thus they sound weird to Portuguese speakers. Even Dom Pedro II or Getúlio Vargas didn't inspire city names such as "Pedro" or "Getúlio". "Petrópolis", "Pedro II" or "Pedro de Alcântara" is another history, though.

So even if there was an important Manuel in Civ BE lore, I don't think the colonists would name a city simply after his given name. It'd be something like "Brigadeiro Manuel" or "Manuel Ferreira" or even "Manuelópolis".

This. It wouldn't be a problem to call a city "Manoel" if there were some indicative of who he might have been. Considering that the Firaxis team is naming planets after themselves, maybe there is some Manoel in their team?

Well, what about the other city names we've seem in the Affinities livestream? They were Santo Adrião, Dourado, Fiel and Boa Esperança.

Santo Adrião could be named either after some Portuguese villages, which is unikely, or after Saint Adrian of Nicomedia. This name is ok for a city, but is odd for some reasons. First, here in Brazil we use Adriano instead of Adrião. Second, this isn't exaclty a Saint with much appeal around here. So much so that I never heard of him. He's more famous in Northern Europe and in Orthodox countries. But his significance is understandable: Saint Adrian is a military Saint, protector against plagues, and patron of the older soldiers and weapon's traders. But again, Saint George is far more known and revered here in Brazil.

Dourado is also ok for a city, althougt the name alone seems kind of random. It means only "golden".

Same with Fiel (Loyal, Faithful. Can also means Believer, the opposite of Infidel). I could see a city named this way, but alone it carries little meaning.

Boa Esperança (Good Hope) is a great name for pioneering and explorer civilizations. Portugal named the Southern part of Africa as "Cape of Good Hope", after all.

 

[iRule]

There are apparently a few villages called "Santo Adrião de [...]" in Portugal. Apparently there's a village called, exactly, "Santo Adrião", which was a village in Northern Portugal with 81 inhabitants that was declared "extinct" in 2013, according to wikipedia.

I doubt it's named after that.

The name is also weird - like Veras said, we usually use "Adriano", not Adrião: both in Portugal and Brazil. The Portuguese used "Adrião" at one point, but it's been centuries since we used the syncopated version of the name to refer to it. I had never heard about that Saint: it's quite unknown in here. Apparently the name of those Portuguese villages may have come from the Nordic crusaders in the Iberian Peninsula a long time ago, so it isn't really Portuguese-ish/Brazilian...

Out of those names Boa Esperança stands out. It's a name I can see being given to a colony - and there's a precedent in Portuguese history.

I'd also find names like "Belo Horizonte" (Beautiful Horizon - capital of Minas Gerais, Brazil) pretty cool, if they used them.

 

[Deggial]

Names have origins and meanings.

"Manuel" derives fom the hebrew "im el" = engl. "with god" and may be translated as "God be with us!", which is a fitting name for a newly founded colony.

This may be a little bit far fetched, by I can live with this interpretation.

 

[defiler]

For myself, I will remove all those nonsense names references on the XML file unless they give some lore behind it
I will even help Firaxis with a list of names that are Brazilian and militar related so they or anyone else can copy if wanted
Anyone that would like to add their opinion is welcome too, here we go:
Cidadela
Dourado
Fiel
Boa Esperança
Forte Araripe (means Fort, and one of Rejinaldo's family name)
Base Antartica (Antartic Base, In reference of Rejinaldo speech)
Porto Amazonia (means Port Amazonia, also in reference of Great Mistake opening that region to commerce)
Nova Agulhas Negras (Also in reference of Rejinaldo speech, a famous Brazilian militar academy)
Academia Rio de Janeiro (means academy)
Quartel São Paulo (means Barracks)
Cidade do Planalto (means city of the plains, also a reference of the actual city of Brasilia)
Cruzeiro do Sul (southern cross, main constalation on south hemisphere)
Ipiranga (a rivers name where was declared brazilian independence)
Nova Guanabara (a reference of Rio de Janeiro's beach)
Guaranis (Name of a tribe that lived on Brazil before the Portuguese)
Baia de Todos os Santos (Place where Portuguese fleet arrived, means All Saint's Bay)
Inconfidentes (name of one of the revolutionary moviments on colony Brazil)
Vale dos Desbravadores (means valley of pathfinders)
Sertão dos Bandeirantes (means Bandeirantes' barrens, Bandeirantes is a name of explorers that mapped and extended much of Brazil territory on colony times)
Praça dos Pracinhas (means Pracinhas' plaza, name of Brazillian soldiers that went on second world war)
Nova Petropolis (a Brazillian city and also a reference to Pedro, Rejinaldo second name)
Bons Ventos (Good winds, also a reference to Buenos Aires, since they seem be part of Brasilia)
Pouso da Aguia (Eagle's Landing, also a reference to Rejinaldo speech, aparently the Brasilia starship name)
Redentor (Redeemer, also a reference to Rio de Janeiro's statue)
Maybe could be put some city names in spanish too to reference the other South American countries

 

[HipNozY]

For myself, I will remove all those nonsense names references on the XML file unless they give some lore behind it
I will even help Firaxis with a list of names that are Brazilian and militar related so they or anyone else can copy if wanted
Anyone that would like to add their opinion is welcome too, here we go:
Cidadela
Dourado
Fiel
Boa Esperança [...]

Spoiler :

Forte Araripe (means Fort, and one of Rejinaldo's family name)
Base Antartica (Antartic Base, In reference of Rejinaldo speech)
Porto Amazonia (means Port Amazonia, also in reference of Great Mistake opening that region to commerce)
Nova Agulhas Negras (Also in reference of Rejinaldo speech, a famous Brazilian militar academy)
Academia Rio de Janeiro (means academy)
Quartel São Paulo (means Barracks)
Cidade do Planalto (means city of the plains, also a reference of the actual city of Brasilia)
Cruzeiro do Sul (southern cross, main constalation on south hemisphere)
Ipiranga (a rivers name where was declared brazilian independence)
Nova Guanabara (a reference of Rio de Janeiro's beach)
Guaranis (Name of a tribe that lived on Brazil before the Portuguese)
Baia de Todos os Santos (Place where Portuguese fleet arrived, means All Saint's Bay)
Inconfidentes (name of one of the revolutionary moviments on colony Brazil)
Vale dos Desbravadores (means valley of pathfinders)
Sertão dos Bandeirantes (means Bandeirantes' barrens, Bandeirantes is a name of explorers that mapped and extended much of Brazil territory on colony times)
Praça dos Pracinhas (means Pracinhas' plaza, name of Brazillian soldiers that went on second world war)
Nova Petropolis (a Brazillian city and also a reference to Pedro, Rejinaldo second name)
Bons Ventos (Good winds, also a reference to Buenos Aires, since they seem be part of Brasilia)
Pouso da Aguia (Eagle's Landing, also a reference to Rejinaldo speech, aparently the Brasilia starship name)
Redentor (Redeemer, also a reference to Rio de Janeiro's statue)
Maybe could be put some city names in spanish too to reference the other South American countries

Great suggestions
Any city name with "Bandeirantes", "Sertão" or with Tupi-Guarani meaning would be perfect. Also, something regarding the Gaúchos (pampas?) would be cool.
The only one I disliked is "Praça dos Pracinhas", but I have no better suggestion

 

[NukeAJS]

I didn't read the whole thread, but if Manoel is a very common name in Brazil, then it's more likely that someone named Manoel will do something worthy of having a city named after him in the future.

But yeah, I can agree that now it might sound really odd to name a city after a common name. "Susan" as a city name is just weird.

Speaking of Susan, isn't the ARC capital city name -- "Capital" -- even stranger? "Headquarters" would obviously make more sense from a corporate standpoint if there wasn't any creativity. The only thing I can think of is that ARC never had a proper "capital" as far as a government capital. Since ARC doesn't sound like the kind of company to employ "classic" artistic types (I'm sure their accounting is very creative though), they put zero thought into a cool name and named their capital Capital. This is so that they could devote more time into crunching numbers and scheming ... maybe?

 

[Liex]

ARC's capital name is "Central", actually.

 

[CortreX]

If there will be the possibility to customize the city names, I'm pretty sure I will change all of them and I will invent every time a new "flavour" for the new planet I'm gonna colonize...