Amparo (name)
Amparo is a Portuguese and Spanish word that means refuge or shelter. Several places in the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America are named Amparo, some associated with Our Lady of the Refuge. It is sometimes spelled Ámparo.
Origin
On 24 February 1409, the Venerable Joan Gilabert Jofré of the Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy was en route to Valencia's Cathedral to deliver a Lenten sermon when he witnessed a mentally ill man being lynched. In response, his Order founded a hospice in 1410 with help from Roman Catholic confreres for the mentally ill under the invocation of Sancta dels Folls Doña Nostra i Desamparats Innocents, whose goal was to help people with mental illness. It has been claimed that this was the first psychiatric hospital in the world.Due to the famine of the period and the high rate of orphans due to the plague, the streets were filled with orphans. The hospice was soon expanded to assist orphans and foundlings, many the result of the plague.
People with the name
Given name
- Amparo Acker-Palmer, Spanish biologist
- Amparo Alvajar, Spanish journalist, dramatist, and writer
- Amparo Arozamena, Mexican actress
- Amparo Arrebato, Colombian dancer
- Amparo Ballivián, Bolivian economist
- Amparo Baró, Spanish actress
- Amparo Cabanes Pecourt, Spanish academic and politician
- Amparo Caicedo, Colombian sprinter
- Amparo Cuevas, Spanish Roman Catholic seer
- Amparo Custodio, Filipino comedian and actress
- Amparo Dávila, Mexican writer
- Amparo Garcia-Crow, Mexican-American filmmaker
- Amparo Grisales, Colombian actress
- Amparo Guillén, Ecuadorian actress
- Amparo Illana, wife of Spanish politician Adolfo Suárez
- Amparo Iturbi, Spanish concert pianist
- Amparo Lim, Filipino badminton player
- Amparo Llanos, Spanish musician
- Amparo Menendez-Carrion, Uruguayan-Ecuadorian academic
- Amparo Montes, Mexican singer
- Amparo Moraleda Martínez, Spanish business executive
- Amparo Muñoz, Spanish actress
- Amparo Noguera born 1965), Chilean television and film actress
- Amparo Ochoa, Mexican singer-songwriter
- Ámparo Otero Pappo, Cuban milliner honored as Righteous Among the Nations
- Amparo Pacheco, Spanish actress
- Amparo Piñero, Spanish actress, singer, dancer and model
- Amparo Poch y Gascón, Spanish anarchist
- Amparo Rivelles, Spanish actress
- Amparo Rubiales, Spanish politician
- Amparo Rubín, Mexican singer
- Amparo Sánchez, Spanish musician
- Amparo Soler Leal, Spanish actress
- Amparo Valle, Spanish actress
Surname
- Ely do Amparo, Brazilian footballer
- Kristin Amparo, Swedish singer