Cultural–Cognitive Study of Selected Death-Oriented Personal Names in Igbo

Abstract

Working chiefly within the tenets of Cultural Linguistics (CL), this study examines the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria. Based on the cultural linguistic perspective, the analytical tool for the study is shaped by insights from cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors as signifiers of ideation and social meaning. The cultural frames enable the language user to have a better understanding of the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie the conceptualization of names and naming among the Igbo. Much has been done on the structure and sociological forms of Igbo personal names and their meanings, but only a few studies have been undertaken on the names that express the notions of death and dying in Igbo. More importantly, no previous study has used insights from Cultural Linguistics (CL) or the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to explain the motivations for the preponderance of death-oriented names among the Igbo people. Thus, this study specifically aims to address the lacuna. The study reveals that the Igbo, like most African and other human societies, recognize and accept the inevitability of death. Consequently, they use language in diverse forms and contexts to express their perceptions of the horrors and pains associated with the inevitability of death. Songs, proverbs and ritual practices are some of the verbal and social semiotic forms through which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitude toward death and dying. However, names and naming are the most vivid cultural cognitive patterns by which the Igbo show their understanding of the nature of death and dying and their psychological effects on the living. Constrained by space and scope, this study identified and classified six major death-oriented names among the Igbo, as follows: names that depict the overwhelming power of death; names that make an appeal to death; names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror; names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class; names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death; and names that depict death as an insensitive entity. Thus, the above frames constitute the major paradigms by which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitudes toward death and dying.

1. Introduction

The notion of the inevitability of death has been well established in different religious and philosophical literatures and thoughts. The different cultural and cognitive beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of death and dying by societies have also received great attention in scholarship (Anetoh 2017; Ebo 2019; Dimkpa 2023; Kamalu et al. 2023). The Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria, like most traditional African societies, believe in the dichotomous existence of life and death. Most traditional African societies, however, perceive death as a transition from one realm of existence to another (Idowu 1991; Mbiti 1969, 1991). They do not perceive death as the end of human existence. Thus, human existence is conceptualized as being cyclical in nature or as a continuum involving birth (life), death and rebirth (reincarnation). The dead members of a family transit to the level of ancestorhood from where they continue to monitor the actions and inactions of the living members of their families. It is from the domain of the ancestors that the dead return to the world of the living through the process of reincarnation. The belief of the Igbo that death is a transition from one plane of existence to another shapes the way they respond to developments in their cosmic universe (Orjikwe 2016; Kamalu et al. 2023). Anetoh (2017) and Okide (2020) contend that the traditional Igbo society perceives death as separation from the living rather than total destruction or end of human existence. In the same vein, Ebo (2019, p. 26) argues that “Ndigbo, like the rest of the world have refused to accept the biological finality of death”. The term Ndigbo refers to the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria. Kamalu et al. (2023) opine that deceased members of a family never leave their family completely, as their spirit beings continue to participate, interfere and mediate in the affairs of the bereaved family. The dead, therefore, actively and vicariously participate in the activities of the living and exercise some level of influence, legitimation and hegemony over the living (Anetoh 2017). For the traditional Igbo, there is always this consciousness of divine control of various natures (Orjikwe 2016, p. 76). This implies some form of constant interaction between the realms of the living and the dead. This also implies that death, as dreadful as it might seem to humans, is not perceived as the end of human existence by the Igbo and most African traditions.

In spite of the philosophical acceptance of death by the Igbo as an inevitable transition from one plane to another, the Igbo still contemplate death with trepidation, horror and uncertainty. Most Igbo fear and abhor death, and this explains why discourses involving death and dying are only mentioned during special situations, events or times of the day. The Igbo personal name Egwuonwu or Egwuonwuegbunam (“The fear of death” or “May the fear of death not kill me”) frames the cognitive attitude of the Igbo society toward death and dying. Anetoh (2017, p. 62) contends that such a cognitive expression of fear for death is motivated by the reality that “the time and mode of its (death) occurrence is unknown…it happens contrary to people’s expectations”. Anetoh (2017, p. 68) further posits that “despite the fact that Igbos believe in reincarnation, an average traditional Igbo man fears death and does not want to die. This may be as a result of the fact an Igbo man is uncertain of his fate in the world of the spirit. The world of the spirit can either be a place of suffering or happiness”. Dimkpa (2023) anchors the inherent fear of death among humans in the fact that no one in the prime of their lives or at the peak of their flourish in health, wealth, pleasure or ambition desires death. According to Dimkpa (2023, p. 183), sadly, “Yet like shadow, the awareness of possible sudden end stalks at everyone. It is not the most comfortable feeling”. Dying suddenly at the prime of one’s youth is categorized as onwuike (sudden/untimely death) by the Igbo. Victims of onwuike are usually suspected to be spirit-children (Ogbanje in Igbo and Abiku in Yoruba). Ogbanje in Igbo (or abiku in Yoruba) are spirit-children who maintain a cycle of dying and being reborn (Kamalu 2009, 2014). Achebe (1986) in The World of Ogbanje, however, argues that some ogbanje persons live up to adolescence or adulthood before dying suddenly. This implies there are different shades of ogbanje in Igbo cosmology. Other cultural categorizations of death identified by Anetoh (2017, p. 68) are onwu-chi (natural death), onwu-ojoo (shameful/bad death) and onwu-akameru (death caused by human agents). Each Igbo community has its own parameters for perceiving and categorizing death, and these parameters are shaped by the cultural and religious orientations of the community.

Pentaris (2011), in his study of the attitudes toward and perceptions of death, dying and bereavement among the different ethnic cultures of Hawaii, concludes that cultural and religious orientations play crucial roles in the way the societies perceive and respond to death and dying. Similarly, Okechi (2017) argues that religious, cultural and socio-psychological factors underlie how Africans, and Nigerians in particular, perceive, categorize and respond to the phenomenon of death and dying. In this study, our aim is to investigate the cultural cognitive motivations that underlie selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria based on the analytical framework of cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors.

2. Framework

2.1. Review of Related Literature

Naming is a cultural and cognitive activity in all human societies. Naming is a crucial aspect of how societies and cultures identify and categorize persons and entities in their environment. Linguists and other scholars in the field of ethnography/anthropology have studied names and naming in different societies from diverse theoretical orientations. Onumajuru and Eze (2019) and Kamalu (2020) are linguistic studies on the naming of non-human entities in Igbo language and their social meanings in contexts. Onumajuru and Eze is a morpho-sociolinguistic study of calques and coinages in Igbo, while Kamalu is on the metaphorical naming of dreaded diseases in Igbo language and thought. Mensah (2024, p. 2) contends that names are the most important anchors of personal identity that define how human beings see themselves and how others perceive them. For him, names help bearers to make social connections, build relationships and maintain membership in a particular community. This implies that names help to identify an individual, situate them in social and cultural contexts and enable the bearers to construct tenor/interpersonal relationship within their societies.

Ubahakwe (1981, 1982) observes that Nigerian indigenous names, like most other African names, have culture content. Here, culture content means that the social meanings of names in Africa are culturally and cognitively determined. Ubahakwe (1981, p. 99) posits that names are

not simple labels used, as baggage tags, for mere identification purposes. An indigenous African name on the whole personifies the individual, tells some story about the parents or the family of the bearer and in a more general sense, points to the values of the society into which the individual is born. Unaware of these facts, some Western scholars, are puzzled that Africans make a ‘fuss’ about names.

This suggests that Africans do not see names as mere labels for the sole purpose of identification. Africans care much about the social circumstances around names and how such circumstances construe narratives about the personality of the individuals, the stories and experiences behind their existence and their membership in the linguistic and cultural community to which they belong. Thus, Izevbaye (1981, p. 164) argues that “names in reality exist in a context that gives them form and meaning. Taken out of this context of social reality names remain in atomistic state”. The contexts that shape the meaning of names in Africa could be historical, social, religious or psychological/cognitive. Thus, Nkamigbo (2019) avers that in Africa, names are linked with traditions, values, beliefs and events in people’s lives. This supports the argument that the social and cultural orientations of a people are reflected in the names they bear. Names, therefore, do not exist ab nihilo or in a contextual vacuum in Africa. Onumajuru (2016, p. 307), therefore, contends that “For Ndigbo, a name is not just a tag of identity or personal label but a story and an expression of events and circumstances surrounding the birth of a child as well as the parents’ life experiences and worldview”. Onumajuru further argues that a name is as important to the Igbo as the birth of a child because the parents express all their expectations in life in the name they give to their children. Thus, from the names children bear, one can guess the intentions/life experiences and or expectations of the parents (Onumajuru 2016, p. 308). Based on cultural and cognitive motivations for names and naming in Igbo, Ubahakwe (1981) identifies and classifies personal names in Igbo as follows: names as family history; names as a mirror of social values; names as a sociological imprint; and names as a reflection of personality. This explains why Onumajuru (2016, p. 309) asserts that “Igbo name is a story, a book or a dictionary itself”. Names, therefore, could be described as a story or a dictionary because, in different African societies, names tend to be signifiers of the social and cognitive circumstances and experiences that surround the birth of a child. Names are carriers of social meaning within the cultural communities of the individuals that bear them.

Names and naming are some of the most vivid social forms by which societies reflect their perception of and attitude toward death and dying. Death-related names have been studied by scholars from different theoretical orientations as demonstrations of society’s cultural attitude toward death and dying. Mensah (2024) used insights from ethnopragmatics to undertake a cross-cultural study of death-related names in the Igbo, Ibibio and Owe cultures in Nigeria. The study identified and studied the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie death-related names in those societies. Nkamigbo’s (2019) sociolinguistic study of Igbo names identifies a set of Igbo personal names she classifies as “death-prevention and survival names” as a subcategory of “circumstantial names”. Circumstantial names, according to Nkamigbo, are names that tend to suggest the circumstances and experiences that surround the birth of a child. Among the Igbo, name-givers, who may be the eldest male in the family, the father of the child or any other adult male in the family, take into account the social and cognitive circumstances around the birth of a child in naming them. Death-prevention and survival names suggest that the families of children who bear such names must have suffered several bereavements in the past. Since names are considered as possessing magical powers in the Igbo society, death-prevention and survival names are intended to ward off death from the bearers of such names or serve as a positive affirmation of surviving death.

Mensah and Offong (2013) and Mensah (2015) study death-prevention names in Ibibio. While the former is chiefly a structural study of the morphological and syntactic features of the names and the social meanings they encode, the latter is an ethnographic and ethnopragmatic investigation of how situational and cultural contexts shape the meaning potential of death-prevention names among the Ibibio of South-eastern Nigeria. Other studies on death-prevention names include Obeng (1998) among Akan speakers of Ghana, Mamvura (2021) among the Karanga people of Zimbabwe and Imoh et al. (2022) among the Igala of Nigeria. Musonda et al. (2019) examined death-daring/challenging names among the Tumbuka ethno-linguistic group of Zambia. The study reveals that families who have suffered several losses of infants have the tendency to create names for their children that mock death or challenge death. There is the cultural assumption that such daring names may cause the name-bearer to survive or live longer.

2.2. Theoretical Considerations

The intrinsic relationship between language, culture and society has been of great interest to linguists, anthropologists, sociologists and others in the broad fields of the humanities and social sciences. Language, as a crucial component of the social structure, enables its users to establish relationships, enact their identities and express their social, cultural and cognitive experiences (Kamalu et al. 2022). Sharifian (2017, p. 1) observes that the interest in studying the relationship between language, thought and culture dates back to scholars such as Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. Sharifian (2017, p. 1) contends that despite the long historical attempt to study the links between language, cognition and culture, “a unified subdiscipline focusing on the relationship between language and culture has never been fully developed”. He attributes the slow development of the subdiscipline to the difficulty in defining the terms “language” and “culture”.

Sharifian developed the concept of Cultural Linguistics (CL), which is chiefly concerned with the notion that there is an intrinsic link between language, culture and conceptualization. Sharifian and Palmer (2007), Sharifian (2011) and Sharifian (2017) explore the relationships between language, culture and conceptualizations. Sharifian (2017, p. 2) used the term “Cultural Linguistics” (CL) to refer to “a recently developed discipline with multidisciplinary origins that explores the relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations”. Sharifian (2011) used the term “conceptualisation” to refer to the fundamental cognitive processes such as schematization and categorization. Schematization refers to a process that involves the systematic selection of certain aspects of a referent seen as representing the whole, disregarding the remaining aspects. Categorization, on the other hand, is a process by which distinct entities are treated as somehow equivalent. To Sharifian (2011, p. 3), these processes culturally lead to the development of schemas and categories. He posits that the human conceptual faculties derive from various sources of experience, including bodily and the environmental experiences, which enable new experiences to be made sense of and organized (Sharifian 2011, p. 24).

According to Sharifian (2017), Cultural Linguistics engages with features of human languages that encode or instantiate culturally constructed conceptualizations encompassing the whole range of human experience. Put differently, it means that many features of human languages are entrenched or embedded in cultural conceptualizations. Cultural Linguistics draws theoretical insights from disciplines and subdisciplines such as cognitive psychology, complex science, distributed cognition and anthropology, while knowledge from CL can be applied to several areas including (critical) applied linguistics, intercultural communication, intercultural pragmatics, World Englishes, Teaching English as an International Language and political discourse analysis. Cultural Linguistics offers both a theoretical and an analytical framework for investigating the cultural conceptualizations that underlie the use of human languages.

The analytical tools of CL are shaped by cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors. Cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors are instantiations of conceptualizations. Cultural schemas, according to Sharifian (2017, p. 11), are culturally constructed subclasses of what is known in cognitive science as “cognitive schemas”. In cognitive sciences, terms such as “script”, “frame”, “global concept”, “scenario”, “encyclopaedic entry”, “plan”, “memory object”, “mental model”, “cognitive field”, etc. have been used in defining or analyzing the notion of a cognitive concept. In cognitive psychology, schemas (or schemata) have traditionally been viewed as building blocks of cognition that help organize, interpret and communicate information. Cultural categories are concerned with how humans develop the cognitive abilities to categorize events, objects and experiences in their social and cultural environments. Sharifian (2017, p. 15) describes categorization as another form of conceptualization and one of the most fundamental human cognitive activities. Categorization begins early in life. Children usually begin by setting up their own categories, but as they grow up, they explore and discover, as part of their cognitive development, how their language, and the cultural environment they grow up in, categorize events, objects and experiences. Cultural metaphors, like conceptual metaphors (in Conceptual Metaphor Theory), involve a form of conceptualization across different domains known as the source domain and target domain. According to Sharifian (2017, p. 18), “In more technical terms, we can say that cultural (and conceptual) metaphors are a form of ‘cross-domain conceptualisation’”.

At the heart of the theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics is the notion of “cultural cognition”, which affords an integrated understanding of the notions of “cognition” and “culture” as they relate to language (Sharifian 2017, p. 2). Cultural cognition is composed of cultural schemas and cultural categories. Thus, both categories embody group-level cognitive systems such as worldviews. For Sharifian (2017, p. 5), language serves as a “collective memory bank” of the cultural cognition of a speech community. Many aspects of a speech community’s language are shaped by elements of cultural cognition that have prevailed at different stages in the history of that community and have left traces in subsequent linguistic practice. Cultural conceptualization or cultural cognition can be instantiated and reflected in cultural artifacts such as painting, rituals, language and even silence (Sharifian 2011). This implies that cultural tokens such as songs, paintings, sacred objects, rituals, oral narratives and others are embodiments of cultural conceptualization or cultural cognition. In the same vein, names and naming as cultural cognitive human activities are forms of cultural conceptualization.

3. Research Data and Methodology

This study adopts content analysis as its research tool. Content analysis is either qualitative or quantitative, can be conducted with any written material, from documents to interview transcripts, and can be applied to large numbers of texts (Sándorová 2014). Wigston (2009) contends that a qualitative content analysis, which this study adopts, tends to be more critical in nature and can be used when we need to penetrate the deeper layers of a message, such as in semiology or narrative analysis. Thus, this study adopts a qualitative approach in the collection, analysis and discussion of data. The data for this study were collected between November 2022 and September 2023 from the seven States where Igbo is spoken in Nigeria, namely, Abia, Anambra, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers. Although two of the researchers are of Igbo extraction and are quite familiar with most of the death-oriented names in Igbo, the researchers still engaged the services of 14 research assistants, two for each state, from the different states where Igbo is spoken as a mother tongue/dominant language (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States) or as one of the major languages in the state (Delta and Rivers States) for data collection. The minimum educational qualification possessed by the research assistants was West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE). Competent knowledge in Igbo language and culture was the main criterion for the selection of the research assistants.

The primary data for this study were collected through participant observation and oral interviews. Two of the researchers passively participated in four naming ceremonies during the period, although the researchers had witnessed many others in the past. Two of the ceremonies were conducted in the Awka area of Anambra State, while the other two took place in the Nnebukwu community in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State. The researchers witnessed the processes and rituals associated with name-giving in these parts of Igbo land. None of the naming activities witnessed by the researchers during the current research involved the pouring of libation to the spirit of the ancestors, although they had witnessed some name-giving activities in the past that involved the pouring of libation. Kola-nuts, garden eggs and alligator pepper, among other items, were provided at the occasion in addition to food and drinks. Prayers were made in Igbo, asking the supreme God, Chukwu, and the ancestors of the family to bless and protect the child and his/her parents, family and community. Selected elders present at the occasions were also given the opportunity to pronounce a few words of blessing on the child. The researchers observed that some of the occasions provided some family members an opportunity to relate the social situations that surrounded the birth of the child.

The researchers and their assistants also engaged in face-to face interviews with the participants but resorted to telephone interviews in situations where it was not favorable to have face-to face interviews. The responses from the interviewees were either written down or recorded with a recording device. Some of the participants were interviewed at their homes, offices and other places they considered convenient. Each interview lasted between 20 and 40 min. The interviewers asked the participants to list typical death-oriented names in their communities, the literal meanings of the names, the meanings of the names at the deeper level of signification and the social and cultural contexts of the names. The researchers interacted with well-educated, not too well-educated and non-educated respondents on the subject matter, and there was no need for interpreters because the interviews were conducted in the Igbo language and the researchers and their assistants are competent speakers of the Igbo language. The educational qualifications of the participants were of no significance to the research. In other words, the educational background of the participant was downplayed in the interviews. Crucial to the research and the researchers were the competence and knowledge of the participants in Igbo language and culture. However, some professionals like teachers, lecturers, catechists, village and community scribes were purposively selected for interviews based on their professions, which have to do with writing the names of pupils, students and group members of an association or community. Every other participant outside this category was purposively selected based on their knowledge of Igbo language and culture. Most of the participants interviewed were adult males who possess a good understanding of Igbo language and culture and could communicate in the language without the help of interpreters. Adult males were privileged because naming-giving as a cultural activity is usually the business of adult males in Igbo land. That is, name-givers are usually adult males. However, some adult females, five from each state, were also interviewed by the researchers and their assistants based on the knowledge the women have about the practice of name-giving and typical names in their cultural communities. Twenty-five participants were selected from each of the Southeastern States, while fifteen participants each were selected from Delta and Rivers States respectively. All the participants granted the researchers verbal consent to be interviewed. The age bracket of the participants ranged from mid 20s to late 90s. A total of 145 death-related names were sampled, but only 86 were selected for analysis. Some of the names were dropped because they were dialectal variants of the ones already selected for analysis. Again, there were a handful of names whose meanings were difficult to interpret because of dialectal variations. Such names were also dropped so as not to mislead the potential reader with a wrong translation and interpretation. The researchers decided to settle for only those names whose meaning can be clearly understood by most Igbo speakers of the language irrespective of their state of origin and dialectal background.

4. Data Presentation and Analysis

The classification below (see

Table 1. Classification of Death-Oriented Names.

Classification	Frequency	Percentage
Names that depict the overwhelming power of death	22	26
Names that make an appeal to death	19	22
Names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror	12	14
Names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class/person	12	14
Names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death	13	15
Names that depict death as an insensitive entity	8	9
Total	86	100

) presents the frequency and percentage occur-rence of the six major frames of death-oriented personal names in Igbo. In this section, the six major frames that signify the cultural attitude toward and perception of death and dying among the Igbo, as reflected in the personal names, are presented in

Table 2. Names that depict the overwhelming power of death.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Ikeagwuonwu	death does not get tired
Onwuamadike	death has no respect for the brave/warrior
Onwudiegwu/Onwubudike	death is dreadful/death is a warrior/brave
Onwuemelie/Onwuemeligo	death has prevailed/conquered
Onwuka	death is stronger
Ajaegbonwu	rituals/sacrifices cannot stop death
Onwuachu	death refused (to depart)
Onwugburu	death killed
Onyekonwu?	who is stronger than death?
Ikekonwu	strength cannot prevent/overcome death
Onwuemeka	death has done a lot
Onwummelu	death destroys

,

Table 3. Names that make an appeal to death.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Onwucheta/Onwuchetakwa	death, remember
Onwuegbunam/Onwuegbuchunam	death, do not kill me/or kill me prematurely
Onwugbufo	death, spare the remnants
Onwubiko	death, I implore with you
Onwuchekwa	death, spare/protect this one
Onwuzuruike	death, rest
Onwughalu	death, forgive/pardon
Onwuegbuzila/Onwuagalegbula	death, stop killing/or do not kill now
Onwurah	death, spare/leave this one
Onwukwusi	death, stop
Onwemela	death, do not occur

,

Table 4. Names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Onwuabuenyi	death is no one’s friend
Onwuenwenyi	death has no friends
Onyewuenyionwu?	who is a friend of death?
Onwudinjo	death is evil/wicked
Onwuajoka	death is extremely bad/evil
Onwuadighimma	death is not pleasant/good
Onwudilu	death is bitter/painful
Egwuonwu/Egbwuonwuegbunam	the fear of death/may the fear of death not kill me
Onwuamaegbu	death does not kill sweetly/death kills wickedly
Ebereonwu	at the mercy of death

,

Table 5. Names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Onwuamaeze	death is no respecter of kings
Akuegbonwu	wealth does not prevent death
Onwuamaonyeukwu	death does not respect a wealthy person
Onwuasoanya	death is a respecter of nobody
Onwuatuegwu	death is fearless/fears no one
Onwuama	death does not respect or have empathy for anyone
Onwueliego/onwuadighieriego Onwuamaoge	death does not accept money/bride death does not respect time/age

,

Table 6. Names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Onyirionwu	he/she defied death/refused to die
Anwuanwu	never dies/will not die
Onwubuasi	death is a liar/death cannot kill this one
Onwujuru	death rejected this one
Onwugbughara	death could not kill this one
Onwugbuforo	death spared this one
Onwugbaraoso	death ran away
Onwuabuchi	death is not God
Onwuegbu	death cannot kill
Onwuegbuokwu	death does not kill words
Onwuegbuche	death does not kill thoughts

and

Table 7. Names that depict death as an insensitive entity.

Names	English Translation of Meaning
Onwuatuche	death is inconsiderate/lacks conscience
Onwuamaegbu	death kills without empathy/kills unconscionably
Uyaemeonwu	death is shameless/lacks virtue
Onwuejiogu	death does not respect equity/fairness
Onwuamaghizu	death lacks wisdom
Onwuakpaoke	death makes no distinctions
Belonwu	apart from death/but for death
Onwubuariri	death is anguish/pain

below. The six frames indicate that death-oriented names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria are cultural conceptualizations that reflect how the Igbo perceive the terror of death and dying and their psychological effects on the living (the bereaved). All the names are lamentations that represent the sorrow, sadness and grief occasioned by the death of a beloved member of a family. Thus, we have names that depict the overwhelming power of death; names that make an appeal to death; names that depict death as wicked or evil; names that depict death as no respecter of wealth or social class; names that challenge or mock the assumed power of death; and names that depict death as an insensitive entity. The conceptualizations express the fact that death-oriented names among the Igbo are motivated by the socio-cultural circumstances surrounding the birth of the child, the personal experiences of the name-giver or those of the family of the child, the psychological attitude of the name-giver or that of the family of the child toward death and dying and the cultural assumptions of the society regarding the phenomenon of death, among others. Each of the frames will be discussed in detail in the sections that follow.

The names in this category (Table 2) are cultural–cognitive frames that implicitly and explicitly express the helplessness of humans in the hands of death. The names go beyond accepting the inevitability of death to conceptualizing death as an entity whose power cannot be contained or tamed by human efforts. Names like Ikekonwu (strength cannot prevent/overcome death), Onwuamadike (death has no respect for the brave/warrior) and Onwubudike (death is a warrior/a brave entity) explicitly express the overwhelming power of death. The traditional Igbo society has strong respect for their warriors/the brave (dike) who perform great feats in wars, wrestling competitions and other activities in which bravery and raw strength (ike) are required. However, these names show that human strength and bravery are inferior and subordinate to the power/strength of death. This justifies why the Igbo name their children Onwuka (death is stronger/more powerful), a name that explicitly admits the overwhelming power of death over humans. The cultural ideation that death is stronger than the strongest among humans makes the Igbo approach the terror of death with trepidation. Ajaegbonwu (rituals/sacrifices cannot prevent death) draws from the cultural and cognitive assumption of the Igbo that certain rituals/sacrifices can indeed prevent some sad or unfortunate events from happening. The name Ajaegbonwu, however, communicates the social meaning that death is the only entity that cannot be prevented by rituals and sacrifices. Names like Ajaegbonwu are informed by the social and psychological experiences of the family, the child or the name-giver. Such names are given to children in situations where rituals and sacrifices were performed in vain in the past to prevent the death of a child or children born into the family. Such children are known as ogbanje in Igbo. Ogbanje are spirit-children who maintain a cycle of dying and being born into the same family. Onwuemelie/Onwuemeligo (death has prevailed/conquered) is one of the names that evoke the image schema of existence/life as a conflict between two entities: death and humans. The name implies that death came out victorious in the conflict between death and humans. The name is an explicit acceptance of the overwhelming power of death over humans. Among the Igbo, the names in this category do not just express the cultural and cognitive attitude of the people toward death and dying; the names also incarnate in themselves a sense of psychological pain. The participants interviewed argued that the realization that humans can do nothing to prevent death is painful. The interrogative name, Onyekonwu? (Who is stronger than death?), metaphorizes the psychological pain and the acceptance that no human is stronger than death. The meaning of the names in this category suggests the emotional state of the Igbo and other humans when it is realized that neither human strength nor sacrifices/rituals can prevent death from occurring. The names are therefore bestowed on children as a reflection of the psychological reality that death is so strong that it cannot be tamed or defeated by human efforts.

Most of the names in this category (Table 3) result from ontological metaphors. Ontological metaphors enable language users to conceive their experiences in terms of objects, substances and containers without specifying exactly what kind of object, substance or container is being meant (Kövecses 2010). Personification is considered a form of ontological metaphor. In personification, human qualities are given to nonhuman entities. In Igbo names that make an appeal to death, death is perceived as a human entity with the right human emotions and sensibilities to listen to the pleas from fellow human beings. Death is also construed as a superior human entity with the power to kill other human beings at will. All the names in this category make direct and passionate pleas with death to spare the life of the child. They are a form of death-prevention names because of the belief of the name-givers that such pleas can prevent death from killing the name-bearer. Participants said that the names in this category derive cognitively from the assumption of the Igbo that normal human beings are naturally imbued with a sense empathy to listen to the pleas of their fellow humans in difficult situations. Humans therefore implore their fellow humans for some favors or request/demand goods and services among other acts when there is a need for such. For the names in this group, death is depicted as an entity, like human beings, who can listen to the passionate pleas of their fellow human beings. At the surface level, most of the names appear to be in the imperative form, commanding or directing death to perform or stop performing certain actions. The names request or command death to spare the life of the name-bearer. At the deeper level of signification, however, the names are passionate pleas being made to death to spare the lives of the name-bearers. Names like Onwuegbuzila (death, stop killing), Onwubiko (death, I implore you), Onwugbufo (death, spare the remnants), Onwurah (death, spare this one) and Onwughalu (death, forgive/pardon), at the deeper level of signification, suggest that the family of the child must have suffered several losses in the past, hence the plea with death to discontinue or spare the life of the child being named on this occasion. The names do not imply that the Igbo do not want to die. The Igbo accept the inevitability of death, but they abhor premature/untimely death. Onwuegbunam (death, do not kill me) is a name that appeals to death to not kill the child as it did to others before it. Onwuegbuchunam (death, do not kill me prematurely) and Onwuagalegbula (death, do not kill now) are significantly different from other related names that make an appeal to death to not kill the child/children. Both names do not beg death not to kill the child but plead with death not to kill them in their infancy or youth. The cultural belief of the Igbo is that it is a form of abomination or an unnatural phenomenon for one to die young, hence the plea with death to give them (the name-bearers) a longer life on earth. The cultural significance of the names is the acceptance of the inevitability of death by the Igbo and the belief that bestowing certain names on some children can prevent or delay their death.

The personal names in this category (Table 4) express the terror or wickedness associated with death and dying in the imagination of the Igbo. Names like Egwuonwu (the fear of death) and Egwuonwuegbunam (may the fear of death not kill me) express the psychological effect of death on the human mind or how the Igbo express their psychological attitude toward death and dying. The latter is evocative in nature, but it shows the psychological feeling of the name-giver. Both names encode the fear the Igbo, as other humans, have about death and dying. The latter, Egwuonwuegbunam, particularly shows the psychological attitude of the family of the child or the name-giver toward the phenomenon of death or dying. Participants posit that the names are reflections of the mood of fear and despair in the families of the children that the names are being bestowed upon. Ordinarily, the birth of a child into a family brings joy and a positive mood among family members. Here, we have a scenario in which the arrival of a child into a family comes with it the feeling of death, uncertainties and inevitabilities. The participants contend that the context of the names implies that families who give their children such names must have suffered a lot in the hands of death. The names therefore signify the seeming perpetual fear the family has of death and dying. The declarative nature of all the names but one is an indication that the name-giver is sure of his facts about death and dying or is stating some facts about death and dying as he perceives them to be. Death is also depicted as an inhuman entity who has no friends or possesses the camaraderie that exists among human beings. Such names as Onwuabuenyi (death is no one’s friend), Onwuenwenyi (death has no friends) and Onyewuenyionwu? (Who is a friend of death?) show that the Igbo perceive death as an entity that has no feelings for friendship as other human beings. The rhetorical name, Onyewuenyionwu? (Who is a friend of death?) shows the psychological assumption of the Igbo that death has no feelings or compassion to keep friendship. Ordinarily, human beings and some pet animals have their circle of friends, but the Igbo, through the interrogative name, indicate that death does not have friends and, hence, it can kill anybody at will. The interrogative suggests that the family of the name-giver must have made several futile efforts in the past to appease death or make friends with it, hence the question. It is a name of lamentation. The names metaphorize the evil and wickedness associated with death. They signify that death cannot be trusted by humans in the enactment of social bonds. Names like Onwudinjo (death is evil/wicked), Onwuajoka (death is extremely bad/evil) and Onwuamaegbu (death kills wickedly) depict how the Igbo perceive the phenomenon of death. The names in this group depict the terror of death. Together with Onwuadighimma (death is not pleasant/good) and Onwudilu (death is bitter/painful), the names signify the psychological repulsion the Igbo have toward death and dying. They indicate the social, cultural and psychological attitude toward death among the Igbo.

In Igbo culture (Table 5), some individuals and entities are accorded special respect because of their age, status, class, profession and social roles in the society. Individuals who show no respect to a class of persons like kings, queens, the wealthy, the aged and others who exert some form of legitimation in their communities are treated with disdain and sometimes sanctioned. Death, however, appears to be one phenomenon that has shown to have no respect for individuals because of their high social standing. Personal names like Onwuamaeze (death is no respecter of kings), Onwuamaonyeukwu (death does not respect a wealthy person) and Akuegbonwu (wealth does not prevent death) frame death as a leveller who does not respect the social class of human beings such as kings and the wealthy. The names show that death makes no distinctions between the rich and the poor. Other names like Onwueliego (death does not accept money or bribes) and Onwuamaoge (death does not respect time/age) cognitively frame death as an entity that cannot be manipulated with wealth and age since it kills the rich and the poor and the young and the old and can come unannounced. In the imagination of the Igbo, death is not afraid of any person (Onwuatuegwu) and does not defer to any individual because of their social status (Onwuasonya). All the names in this category are therefore cultural–cognitive expressions of how the Igbo construe the nature, power and terror of death. Names like these come from the social experiences of families who may have lost their beloved ones in spite of the huge resources or social power possessed by the individuals or their families. Some Igbo families therefore bestow such names on their children as a sad reminder of the dreaded nature of death and its influence in the affairs of humans. In the natural social order, some privileged individuals can use their social positions to change the outcome of some things and events. The Igbo, through the names in this category, demonstrate that death is one entity that cannot be influenced by one’s social class or position. The names incarnate in themselves the notion of fatalism or inevitability. Culturally and philosophically, the names appear to accept the inescapability of death and the inability of humans to stop death. Among the Igbo, the names are also lamentations on the grief caused by death for the family of the name-giver and a reminder to the name-giver’s family that death is inevitable. The names therefore index death as a dreaded entity.

All the names in this category (Table 6) incarnate in themselves the notion of resistance discourse to a dominant and oppressive force or entity. In this scenario, death is conceived as an oppressive entity to humans, and the names that mock or challenge the assumed power of death are cultural–cognitive ways of delegitimizing death and dying. The names represent a positive affirmation and attitude regarding survival and living in the face of a very difficult and agonizing situation. The names are given to children by their parents or name-givers on the assumption that the positive affirmations immanent in them will prevent or delay the death of the bearers. The act of naming is enacted as verbal rhetoric in most African cultures and reinforces the importance attached to the spoken word in such cultures. Thus, Onwuegbuokwu (death does not kill words) and Onwuegbuche (death does not kill thoughts) affirm the beliefs of the Igbo that words and thoughts are powerful and immortal. The Igbo therefore believe that the positive affirmations expressed in most of the names in this category have the power to avert the death of the bearers of such names. The names are rhetorical affirmations of an Igbo proverb that says Onyekwe chi ya ekwe (if a man says yes, his chi (personal god) also affirms). Though names like Onyirionwu (he/she defied death/refused to die), Anwuanwu (he/she never dies/will not die), Onwubuasi (death is a liar/death cannot kill this one) and Onwuegbu (death cannot kill) may sound grossly hyperbolic at the surface level, they metaphorize a form of resistance to death and dying. They encapsulate the will power and determination to live and mock/dare the assumed power of death to kill all mortals. The Tumbuka society of Zambia also confers death-daring or death-challenging names on their children, like the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria (Musonda et al. 2019). Both societies believe that bestowing such names on some children can prevent or delay the death of such children.

Similarly, Onwujuru (death rejected this one), Onwughara (death could not kill this one), Onwugbuforo (death spared this one) and Onwugbaraoso (death ran away) are names that show defiance to death. The names do not imply that death has empathy for its victims; rather, they signify that the bearers metaphorically resisted or defeated death. The deeper meaning of these names is imbedded in the contextual, cultural and psychological matrix of the Igbo society, which cannot be properly expressed in the English Language. The names imply that it is the resistance or defiance of the name-bearer that made death reject or spare its supposed victim. The same goes for the name that suggests that death ran away. The Igbo society sees those names as a form of resistance discourse to the power of death. Taken outside the situational, cultural and psychological imaginaries of the Igbo, the names become empty and meaningless. As with some of the names already analyzed, the names in this category are occasioned by situations in which a family has suffered serial losses of their children in the past. The names therefore serve as consolation, resistance and positive affirmation to live at the same time.

The names in this category (Table 7) are based on ontological metaphors, as in others where death is personified as a human being. Here, the emotional and psychological attributes of human beings are systematically mapped onto death. However, most of the attributes associated with death here are orientational. Orientational metaphors make a set of target concepts coherent in our conceptual system (Kövecses 2010)—for example, MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN, VIRTUE IS UP; LACK OF VIRTUE IS DOWN; etc. Here, orientational metaphors are used to present a negative evaluation of death in context. Onwuatuche (death is inconsiderate/lacks conscience), Onwuamaegbu (death kills without empathy/kills unconscionably), Uyaemeonwu (death is shameless/lacks virtue), Onwuejiogu (death does not respect equity/fairness) and Onwuamaghizu (death lacks wisdom) are orientational metaphors. The five names are cultural metaphors that represent how the Igbo evaluate death and dying. Death is evaluated as lacking conscience, empathy, virtue, equity and wisdom; hence, we have a juxtaposition of value. Thus, CONSCIENCE IS UP; LACK OF CONSCIENCE IS DOWN, EMPATHY IS UP; LACK OF EMPATHY IS DOWN, VIRTUE IS UP; LACK OF VIRTUE IS DOWN, EQUITY IS UP; LACK OF EQUITY IS DOWN, WISDOM IS UP; and LACK OF WISDOM IS DOWN. In all five names, death receives negative evaluations, a strong disapproval in the orientation of the Igbo people. The orientational metaphors enable the language users to understand the attitude of the Igbo toward death and dying. The orientational metaphors make the concept of death and dying appear more coherent in the imagination of the Igbo people. Other names such as Onwuakpaoke (death makes no distinction), Belonwu (apart from death/but for death) and Onwubuariri (death is anguish/pain) also present negative evaluations of death as an entity that is unreasonable, causes physical and psychological pain to others and stops people from realizing their ambitions such as joy, happiness, family bonds, material wealth, etc. The names are expressions of grief by the family of the name-giver. Overall, the names in this category culturally metaphorize death as an insensitive entity who has no feelings for the emotional pains and trauma it causes its victims, the family of the name-giver.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The study of death-oriented names is not new in Igbo and African studies. However, just a few of such studies have used insights from culture–cognition to examine the motivations that underlie the bestowing of death-oriented names on children by name-givers among the Igbo. Based on the tenets of Cultural Linguistics (CL) and the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), this study examines the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie the selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria. The preponderance of death-oriented names among the Igbo shows that the Igbo people of Nigeria recognize and accept the existence of death and its physical and psychological effects on the living. Other semiotic regimes such as songs, proverbs, rituals and performances have been used by the Igbo to express their social and cultural understanding of death and dying. However, this study reveals that names remain the most vivid linguistic form through which the Igbo construe and express their knowledge of the phenomenon. Death-oriented names metaphorize the attitude of the Igbo toward death and dying. They are also carriers and expressions of the grief, pains, anxieties and uncertainties associated with death and dying.

The death-oriented names the Igbo bestow on their children are motivated by Igbo cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors. The cultural ideology of the Igbo enables them to frame death as an enemy or an opponent rather than a friend. The Igbo names that frame death as an enemy implicitly encode the tenor or interpersonal relationship between death and humans. The names embody in themselves the asymmetrical power relations between death and humans. This explains why most of the death-oriented names the Igbo bestow on their children derive from ontological and orientational cultural metaphors. The ontological metaphors enable the Igbo to conceptualize death as human. Thus, most of the attributes associated with human beings are mapped onto death. The death-oriented names that emanate from orientational metaphors frame death as lacking in empathy, conscience, equity and wisdom, unlike human beings. The cultural orientation of the Igbo motivates their categorization of death into different frames. Premature/untimely death is categorized as onwu-ike among the Igbo. This category of death is regarded as unnatural by the Igbo. Dead infants or youths are regarded as having died onwu-ike. The name Onwuamaoge (death does not respect time/age) is associated with situations of untimely death. The Igbo abhor onwu-ike.

Our field work reveals that the different social knowledge, cultural and religious beliefs and psychological experiences of the Igbo regarding death and dying shape how the Igbo people conceptualize and categorize death. This study identified six major categorizations of death-oriented names, as evidenced in the selected Igbo personal names. The six different categories represent the experiences, socio-psychological attitudes and cultural-religious beliefs of the Igbo regarding death and dying. The names that depict the overwhelming power of death, construe the terror or wickedness of death or make an appeal to death reveal the helplessness of humans in the hands of death. Such names explicitly and implicitly admit the inability of human efforts to stop the occurrence of death. Names like Onwuemeligo (death has conquered) and Onwuka (death is stronger) index the power of death. In recognition of the overwhelming power of death, the Igbo resort to pleading with death to spare the lives of the name-bearer. Some of the participants we interviewed said that the traditional Igbo society perceives death as an entity that can hear and listen to the pleas of others, and hence, the Igbo believe that by making appeals to death, it could have a change of mind and spare the life of the name-bearer. Thus, the appeals are motivated by the cultural and cognitive assumption of the Igbo that since death cannot be defeated by human efforts, the act of pleading may persuade death to prolong the life of the name-bearer. The simple and declarative forms of the names that depict death as no respecter of the wealth or social status of persons and as an insensitive entity help the Igbo people have a sense of the pain and grief in the hearts of the families of the name-bearers. Some of the participants we interacted with told us that such names were motivated by past sad experiences of the family of the name-givers. Such names therefore enable the name-givers to communicate their social and psychological experiences.

The researchers discovered that while most of the death-oriented names tended to communicate the grief, pain, fears, anxieties and uncertainties in the hearts of the families who have suffered the loss of their infants in the past, the Igbo have a category of death- prevention names that challenges the assumed powers of death. The cultural–cognitive motivation for such names is based on the belief of the Igbo in the power of the spoken word. The Igbo believe that by challenging the assumed powers of death in the death-daring names bestowed on their infants, death will be forced to spare such children from dying untimely. Nkamigbo (2019) classifies such Igbo personal names as “death-preventive and survival names”. The Tambuka society of Zambia (Musonda et al. 2019) also have a similar culture. Participants told us that families who bestow death-challenging names on their children must have suffered serial losses of their infants in the past. Thus, by bestowing such names on their children, such families believe the names can stop or delay the death of their babies.

In the course of our field work, we discovered that there are several death-oriented names in Igbo whose meaning all of our participants did not know or were not sure of. We also have the experience of some participants who told us that their parents did not explain the meaning of their names to them and the circumstances that motivated giving them such names. We therefore recommend that further studies on death-oriented names in Igbo should be extended to such category of names before they go into extinction.

In this study, we have tried to establish the cultural–cognitive motivations that underlie the giving and bearing of death-related names in the traditional Igbo society. The data presented and analyzed in the study revealed that the Igbo attach much significance to the names they give to their children at birth. Names and naming as frames of cultural cognition embody the emotions, perceptions and experiences of the Igbo society. Several factors such as the social and psychological experiences of the parents of the child, those of the name-giver as well as the cultural assumptions surrounding the birth of the child determine the type of name to be given. Thus, families that give death-oriented names to their children are motivated by their social, cognitive and cultural experiences and assumptions about death and dying. While some of the names express the power and terror of death, others are death-preventive, submissive, consolatory, accusatory, conciliatory and defiant in orientation. The different frames or categories of the death-oriented names studied in this research signify the cultural–cognitive attitudes of the Igbo toward death and dying.