Thread:Beckward/@comment-29014642-20160809160250/@comment-29014642-20160811152605

Thanks! (And sorry if this reply appears twice. It looks like it didn't post either, so I try again.)

As he's Brazilian, my guess is that both Pedro and Da Silva are surnames, following the Portuguese/Brazilian custom (by the way, they usually start with the part that comes from the mother's side, while the Spanish custom followed in other countries of Latin America is to start with the father's side, so it might explain why they're not always written in the same order). It looks like he's mostly known as William Pedro, at least since when he started dancing in ballet companies in Switzerland (even a Brazilian website announcing his selection for the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in 2001 calls him "William Pedro", and that's the name he uses on social media too, at least for public accounts) but occasionally the "Da Silva" part is mentioned too, sometimes in the middle (which wouldn't make sense if Pedro was a second given name), sometimes at the end. So... I don't know. Even just for Cats, there's no consistency. On the picture with biography posted when they announced the cast, it was William Da Silva Pedro, then on the "cast of the day" list displayed in the theater's entrance hall, it was just William Pedro. And I don't remember a Cats-related source that called him William Pedro Da Silva but there might be one too. Anyway, we can keep the version with Da Silva in the middle - it seems most likely to be the correct Brazilian one, if the fact he often uses only Pedro as last name in Switzerland and France is any indication that it's the part coming from his father's side of the family (and if I ever find out it's not like that we can still change later).