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Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa
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Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 7718

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Eyo Mensah

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Linguistics, University of Calabar, PMB 1115 Calabar, Nigeria
2. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), University of Ghana, P.O. Box LG50 Legon, Ghana
3. Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), University of Freiburg, 79098 Freiburg, Germany

Interests: anthropological linguistics; morphosyntax; pragmatics; language and naming; language and sexuality; youth language; African studies; Nigerian Pidgin; Efik

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue aims to bring together empirical studies of personal names (anthroponyms) from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives within varied cultural contexts. It will engage new theories and methodologies that will advance interesting lines of inquiry in name studies. Personal names and naming are linguistic universals (Hough 2016; Mensah 2023) and every culture uses these symbolic linguistic tools to identify, classify and individuate its members. Alford (1988) confirms that all cultural groups use personal names as marks of identity and authenticity of community membership. Personal names are important aspects of culture that provide conceptual knowledge of history, social relations, gender, and religious ideologies among others. Personal names bear the mark of identity and ethnicity and confer a sense of how we relate with others, and how they perceive and classify the “significant other”. In other words, names demarcate otherness, inclusion and exclusion (Mensah and Rowan 2019). Names and naming are also linked to social structures and relations of power. These positions broadly justify the claim by Rymes (1999) that naming indexes an entire world of cultural and social relationships. In spite of its immense linguistic, pragmatic and indexical functions in historical and contemporary societies, research on personal names is sparse in the extant literature. The focus of this special issue, therefore, is to unpack and interrogate personal names as cultural signs embedded in social interactions with deep pragmatic resonances from cross-disciplinary accounts. The special issue intends to advance contemporary debates on names from cross-cultural and multidisciplinary applications that will be a valuable source of reference for all researchers interested in the field of name discourse.

The scope will cover new and emerging forms of significations associated with personal names as social and cultural texts, revealing how identity is constructed and shaped in different situations. The special issue will take into account specific thematic issues emerging from name data and explicate how complex subjectivities are formed through personal names in a bid to develop new research directions in name studies. The special issue will further explore temporal perspectives on names and naming, which could include variation and changing patterns over time, and on how names reflect temporal stances towards the past and/or the future. It aims to highlight novel areas of research within the broad spectrum of anthroponyms that will generate significant interest to scholars of interdisciplinary concerns.

The goal is to put together cutting-edge articles that will explore the intersecting and overlapping social significance and complex meanings of personal names in identity construction, reconstruction and deconstruction in contemporary times. It will contribute to expand the frontiers of knowledge and promote nuanced conversations around naming and identity. We will especially welcome submission of original research on potential topics which include but are not limited to the intersection of disciplinary impulses that will contribute to novel development in the field of anthroponyms.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors should initially submit a proposal title and an abstract of 400-600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative Completion Schedule

Abstract Submission Deadline: September 15, 2023

Notification of Abstract Acceptance: October 15, 2023

Full Manuscript Deadline: April 30, 2024

References

Alford, Richard. (1988). Naming and identity: A cross-cultural study of personal naming practices. New Haven, CT: HRAF Press.

Hough, Carole ed. (2016). The Oxford handbook of names and naming. Oxford: OUP.

Mensah, Eyo. (2023). Husband is a priority: Gender roles, patriarchy and the naming of female children in Nigeria. Gender Issues 40(1), 44-64.

Mensah, Eyo and Kirsty Rowan. (2019). African anthroponyms: Sociolinguistic currents and anthropological reflections. Sociolinguistic Studies 13(2-4), 157-170.

Rymes, Besty. (1999). Names. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1&2), 163-166.

Hough, Carole ed. (2016). The Oxford handbook of names and naming. Oxford: OUP.

Prof. Dr. Eyo Mensah
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • personal names
  • sociolinguistics
  • pragmatics
  • ethnography
  • socio-onomastics
  • identity
  • culture
  • environment
  • person reference

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Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 384 KiB  
Article
This Is the Sacrifice: Language, Ideology and Religious Identity Performance in Erei Personal Names
by God’sgift Ogban Uwen and Edadi Ilem Ukam
Languages 2024, 9(10), 326; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9100326 - 9 Oct 2024
Viewed by 415
Abstract
This paper examines personal names derived from traditional religious beliefs and practices among the Erei people in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State in South-South, Nigeria while utilising insights from the multidisciplinary inferences of socio-onomastic theory to account for the cultural, [...] Read more.
This paper examines personal names derived from traditional religious beliefs and practices among the Erei people in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State in South-South, Nigeria while utilising insights from the multidisciplinary inferences of socio-onomastic theory to account for the cultural, social and situational contexts that create the religious content of the names. Data were obtained by means of participant observation and semi-structured interviews during six months of fieldwork involving 40 participants who were the name-givers, name-bearers and name-users. Our findings highlight the socio-onomastic tradition of Erei people in which personal names are bestowed through a conscious application of symbolic linguistic resources to express and perform ideologies and identities that are rooted in the traditional religion’s foundations and sociocultural practices that represent Erei people’s indigenous beliefs system and spiritual worldview. Focused on the ideals of African traditional religion, religious identities are constructed through the use of personal names related to idol worship, the mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration, cultural festivals and performances, symbolic objects, familial rankings and other aspects derived from their environment that also bear traditional religious significance. And because this set of personal names is now predominant among the ageing population and is losing contemporaneity due to an increasing subpopulation with a new (Christian) beliefs system, this study serves to preserve a transiting and endangered Erei socio-onomastic practice that represents the people’s traditional cosmology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
18 pages, 325 KiB  
Article
Shift in Igbo Personal Naming Patterns
by Eunice Kingsley Ukaegbu and Bassey Andian Okon
Languages 2024, 9(10), 312; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9100312 - 27 Sep 2024
Viewed by 347
Abstract
Some African societies use personal names as a means of conveying their cultural values, traditions, and experiences. Personal names are therefore an important means of identifying their bearers. However, in recent times, it has been observed that the practice of identity construction does [...] Read more.
Some African societies use personal names as a means of conveying their cultural values, traditions, and experiences. Personal names are therefore an important means of identifying their bearers. However, in recent times, it has been observed that the practice of identity construction does not seem to apply in the naming patterns of some African societies. Among the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, there has been a shift in the contemporary naming of children as a result of greater media access, global communication, creativity, and the rising profile of Pentecostal Christianity. This study investigates the new trends in naming among the Igbo, as well as the motivations, semantic implications, and the general perception of these names by the Igbo people. Using the causal theory of names, this study adopts a qualitative design approach, and data were elicited from 100 participants who were mainly name-givers, bearers, and users. This study reveals a decline in the observance of the traditional naming patterns or practices of the Igbo, as it was noted that the new naming trend is related to favorableness toward Western culture, religion, and influence, which is seen as a form of style that connects name-bearers with prestige and modernity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
18 pages, 382 KiB  
Article
They Do Not Eat a Wife’s Beauty: The Ethnopragmatics of Bette Proverbial Personal Names
by Romanus Aboh, Angela Ajimase and Idom T. Inyabri
Languages 2024, 9(9), 302; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9090302 - 16 Sep 2024
Viewed by 914
Abstract
Names and naming practices convey various nuances of meaning in the Bette sociocultural setting. Against this significant backdrop, this study examines proverbial names as figurative and overt communicative strategies among the Bette people of northern Cross River State in south-eastern Nigeria. The qualitative [...] Read more.
Names and naming practices convey various nuances of meaning in the Bette sociocultural setting. Against this significant backdrop, this study examines proverbial names as figurative and overt communicative strategies among the Bette people of northern Cross River State in south-eastern Nigeria. The qualitative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews and informal interactions from purposively selected twenty name-givers and ten name-bearers of Bette proverbial names. Data were analysed using the ethnopragmatic theory, an approach to language study that sees culture as playing a central explanatory role in meaning-making. Besides functioning as discursive strategies through which people’s worldview is embedded, proverbial names serve as sociocultural sites through which interpersonal relationships are performatively constructed and maintained. This study enriches our understanding of how the Bette people use proverbial names as tools of social control to perform gender, strengthen communal bonds, enhance peaceful coexistence, and enact Indigenous worldview among themselves. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
16 pages, 373 KiB  
Article
Identity Framing as Resilience in Selected Nicknames of Nigerian Street Children
by Ezekiel Opeyemi Olajimbiti
Languages 2024, 9(8), 277; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9080277 - 16 Aug 2024
Viewed by 524
Abstract
Street children who are forced onto the streets due to oppressive experiences use a variety of strategies, including nicknaming, to cope with street adversities. Previous studies have not adequately considered street children’s nicknames as resilience enablers. This study fills this gap by unpacking [...] Read more.
Street children who are forced onto the streets due to oppressive experiences use a variety of strategies, including nicknaming, to cope with street adversities. Previous studies have not adequately considered street children’s nicknames as resilience enablers. This study fills this gap by unpacking identity frames in street children’s nicknames as resilience enablers in southwestern Nigeria. Using the unstructured interview method, 65 nicknames of street children in the six southwestern states of Nigeria were sampled and subjected to discourse analysis with insights from social identity theory and the concept of frames. Findings reveal that the sampled names manifest Yorùbá and English with five syntactic patterns. Yorùbá nicknames are characterised by animal metaphors, food/body-parts/virtue-related terms, while the English forms indicate force, weather, and political-related terms, with meanings oriented to street culture. The nicknames configure the identity frames associated with ingroup norms and attributes of self-enhancement. Given the complexity of street life, the children adopt nicknames for discursive functions such as evasive mechanisms, reinforcement of an ingroup affiliation, group management, and bestowal of preferences. This study concludes that full-time street children in southwestern Nigeria use nicknames as adaptations to street culture, routine communication, and psychological strength boosters to withstand the adversities of street culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
16 pages, 334 KiB  
Article
Cultural–Cognitive Study of Selected Death-Oriented Personal Names in Igbo
by Ikenna Kamalu, Ugo P. Onumonu and Arnold Stanley Udisi
Languages 2024, 9(7), 227; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9070227 - 24 Jun 2024
Viewed by 690
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
21 pages, 953 KiB  
Article
The Representation of People in the Ibibio Anthroponymic System: A Socio-Onomastic Investigation
by Eyo Mensah, Kirsty Rowan and Mfon Ekpe
Languages 2024, 9(6), 188; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060188 - 21 May 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1110
Abstract
In the African cultural context and beyond, personal names are not just unique forms of identifying and individuating their bearers; they also provide relevant windows that resonate with the people’s worldviews, values, and cosmology. From a socio-onomastic perspective, this article examines the representation [...] Read more.
In the African cultural context and beyond, personal names are not just unique forms of identifying and individuating their bearers; they also provide relevant windows that resonate with the people’s worldviews, values, and cosmology. From a socio-onomastic perspective, this article examines the representation of people and their description in the Ibibio cultural namescape, which is a source of their traditional epistemology. Personal names are symbolic linguistic resources that contain information about the Ibibio universe of meaning, where people are placed at the centre of every social relationship. Drawing on ethnographic data sourced through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants who were name-givers, name-bearers and name-users, this study reveals that the Ibibio naming tradition provides a medium for the dissemination of its traditional cultural scripts, which capture community solidarity, support, security and a sense of belonging. This article concludes that the Ibibio anthroponymic culture reflects people as sources of empowerment. People provide the foundation for understanding the past and a path for reaching one’s life goals. This study offers significant entry points into the way the Ibibio act and react to the strength of its community and reinforces the belief that for the Ibibio, people-related regime of names is an important resource used to foster a positive sense of community and well-being. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
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18 pages, 765 KiB  
Article
‘Refuse Dump, Hurry Up!’: A Cognitive Onomastic and Cultural Metaphor Perspective of Nzema Death-Prevention Names
by Mohammed Yakub
Languages 2024, 9(5), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050167 - 6 May 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1167
Abstract
African personal names have communicative contents that reflect the experiences and expectations of the name-giver as well as the bearer. Death-prevention names, for instance, provide some assurance and security that are vital for a child’s survival, given the implicit assumption that certain spiritual [...] Read more.
African personal names have communicative contents that reflect the experiences and expectations of the name-giver as well as the bearer. Death-prevention names, for instance, provide some assurance and security that are vital for a child’s survival, given the implicit assumption that certain spiritual forces are at work. The bestowal of despicable and ‘ugly’ names on children whose preceding siblings died shortly after birth is also a common practice among the Nzema, aiming at preventing succeeding children from death. This study examines cultural conceptions and metaphorical correlations in Nzema death-prevention names. Using 42 death-prevention names obtained through interviews, the study discusses the implications of the names and their metaphoric connections with the objects used to identify this category of people. The study reveals that features of entities such as ɛkpɔtɛ ‘vulture’, nrɛzenra ‘housefly’, kɛndɛne ‘basket’, and fovolɛ ‘refuse dump’ are attributed to these children to make them seem ‘unpleasant’ to the ancestral spirits who are believed to have been snatching them after birth. Other ‘long-lasting’ entities like nyevile ‘sea’, bolɛ ‘rock’, and kpɔma ‘walking stick’ are used metaphorically to refer to a child with the belief that they would survive right from birth and live long on the earth. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
22 pages, 1078 KiB  
Article
Metaphorical Personal Names in Mabia Languages of West Africa
by Hasiyatu Abubakari and Samuel Alhassan Issah
Languages 2024, 9(5), 163; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050163 - 1 May 2024
Viewed by 1035
Abstract
Cultural philosophies, belief systems and experiences serve as superordinate cultural concepts that are reconceptualised and expressed using metaphorical personal names in Mabia languages. Metaphorical personal names are ‘vehicles’ that transport the worldviews of speakers of Mabia languages to the target audiences. Every metaphorical [...] Read more.
Cultural philosophies, belief systems and experiences serve as superordinate cultural concepts that are reconceptualised and expressed using metaphorical personal names in Mabia languages. Metaphorical personal names are ‘vehicles’ that transport the worldviews of speakers of Mabia languages to the target audiences. Every metaphorical personal name shares properties of a superordinate umbrella concept such that even newly created metaphorical names fall within an already existing cultural philosophy. This study argues that there is a corresponding relationship between a metaphorical personal name, the source domain, and its superordinate umbrella philosophical concept, the target domain. The study uses data from four Mabia ‘sister’ languages of West Africa: Dagbani, Kusaal, Likpakpaln, and Sisaali. The findings show that the source domains of these names include the name-bearer and the personal name itself, and the name-giver, whilst the target domains include flora and fauna terms, belief systems, innuendos and proverbs, experiences of name-givers, ‘death prevention’ labels, among others. The article also establishes that both sociocultural and ethnolinguistic factors influence the use of metaphorical personal names in the cultures under study. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is employed for the analysis of data in this research. The work uses the qualitative method and data are sourced from semi-structured interviews, from school registers and other previous studies on personal names in the selected languages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Names and Naming in Africa)
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