Rorion Gracie recently revealed the reason why so many of the first names of members of the Gracie family begin with the letter R. It’s one of the most unusual aspects of the world’s most famous BJJ family, because there are only a handful of children in the family who aren’t given names beginning with the letter R. While this is something that hasn’t been talked about much in the past, it’s also among the most tame of all the questions surrounding the Gracie Family. It’s no surprise that a massive family of dozens of martial artists would have some secrets throughout their history, and plenty of them have already been revealed.
Rickson Gracie previously expanded on the secrets around the parenthood of some of his siblings in recent years and the family has had their fair share of involvement with the law over the decades as well. There’s even been conflict within the family itself and fabricated claims like Rickson Gracie’s famous undefeated record of hundreds of fights. Throughout all this time though, one of the most common questions that keeps coming up about the Gracie family is why so many of their first names begin with the letter R. Rorion Gracie was asked this himself in a recent interview on Inteligencia Ltda and he quickly explained the history behind it:
“Uncle Carlos (Gracie) was the ‘guru’ of the Gracie family, the philosophical mentor. He believed that some letters were stronger than others. The letters R, C and K, he liked those. He also believed that each person had to have a different name, because he thought the name carried a vibratory current. People with the same names have things in common, whether good or bad. The name ends up having this influence. In theory, if you give someone a new name, they will follow their own path.”
While the tradition might have started with Carlos Gracie, it clearly didn’t end with him. Not only did his younger brother Helio Gracie follow in his footsteps but so did many of the pair’s sons too. Even today, many of the more recent children born into the Gracie family have been given names beginning with R as well. Rorion Gracie explained how that came to be as well:
“He (Carlos) tried to create names, often unusual ones. He learned, he did this with his children, and my father (Helio Gracie), naturally influenced by this, did the same thing with his children. When I had my children, I liked the idea and continued doing the same thing.”
The full interview with Rorion Gracie where he explains why so many members of the Gracie family have names that begin with R was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Inteligencia Ltda:
