Like common noun phrases, proper names contain ambiguous conjoined phrases that make their delimitation and classification difficult in text. This paper presents a finite-state approach to the disambiguation of Portuguese candidate proper name strings containing the coordinating conjunction e (and). In such name strings, the conjunction can denote a relation between two independent names, but it can also be part of a multiword proper name. The coordination of multiword independent names may involve ellipsis of some lexical constituents, which causes additional difficulties to proper name identification and classification.