Brazilian jiu jitsu - Origin and Name

Brazilian jiu jitsu is a martial art, combat sport and a self-defensesystem that focuses on grappling and especially ground fighting. The art was derived from the Japanese martial art of Kodokanjudo in the early 20th century, which was itself developed from a number of schools (or Ryu) of Japanese jujutsu in the 19th century.
It promotes the principle that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themself against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique—most notably by applying joint-locks and chokeholds to defeat the other person. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can be trained for sport grappling tournaments (gi and no-gi) and mixed martial arts (MMA) competition or self-defense.[3] Sparring (commonly referred to as 'rolling') and live drilling play a major role in training, and a premium is placed on performance, especially in competition.

Origin
The art began with Mitsuyo Maeda (aka Conde Koma, or Count Coma in English), an expert Japanese judoka and member of the Kodokan. Maeda was one of five of the Kodokan's top groundwork experts that judo's founder Kano Jigoro sent overseas to spread his art to the world. Maeda left Japan in 1904 and visited a number of countries giving "jiu-do" demonstrations and accepting challenges from wrestlers, boxers, savate fighters and various other martial artists before eventually arriving in Brazil on November 14, 1914.