Santa On Fire, Santa-Katarina, Southern Brazil

However, the Brazilian scholar José Adelino da Silva Azevedo has postulated that the word is much older, either of Celtic or Phoenician origin. The Phoenicians traded a red dye extracted from a mineral mined in Celtic lands, from Iberia to Ireland. In Irish mythology there is a Western island called Hy-Brazil, and this is seen by some, including the writer and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien, as one of the most likely etymological sources for the name "Brazil". The same theory was also advanced by 16th century scholars.
In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the natives gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".