originally called sacopenapã, meaning path or flapping noise of herons in the indigenous tupi's language, the region only changed its name to copacabana in the mid-eighteenth century.

between the countries of peru and bolivia, in the copacabana peninsula, there was a supposedly miraculous image of the virgin mary, called nossa senhora de copacabana (our lady of copacabana).

a replica of this picture was brought to rio de janeiro by bolivian silver traders and placed in a small shrine at posto 6, used by the local fishermen, the only residents of the area until the early nineteenth-century.