Indian Ocean trade Madagascar at this time leaving behind a lasting cultural and genetic legacy. Chinese fleets under Zheng He criscrossed the Indian Ocean during the early part of the 15th century. The missions were diplomatic rather than commercial, but many exchanges of gift and produces were made. The Portuguese under Vasco da Gama discovered a naval route to the Indian Ocean through the southern tip of Africa in 1497–98. Initially, the Portuguese were mainly active in Calicut, but the northern region of Gujarat was even more important for trade, and an essential intermediary in east-west trade. Venetian interests were directly threatened as
Portuguese name also bear surnames that cannot be used to distinguish them from the older Catholic Portuguese families. Using tree names as surnames was not a common practice among converted or non-converted Portuguese Jews, before or after their expulsion in 1497. These are some most frequent surnames in Portugal: According to a large scale study of names extracted from various social networking websites, the most common surnames in Brazil are: According to the newspaper Público, the most common given names in Portugal, for 105,000 children born in 2008 were: According to the IBGE the most common given names in Brazil in 2010