This volume combines viewpoints from around the globe to discuss personal naming practices. Following a brief introductory chapter, Section 1, ‘The ethnopragmatics of anthroponyms’, explores how naming connects people socially to their communities, whether that be to their family line, group of friends, or favorite animal. These authors explore the motivations for why certain names are given, whether they be titles (Sara Petrollino), birth order names (Angella Meinerzag), personal names (Márcia Sipavicius Seide), or nicknames (Ilona Mickiene & Rita Baranauskiene). These chapters argue that naming practices offer important insights into a society's distinct characteristics; for example, naming reveals the importance of cattle for the Hamar of Ethiopia (Petrollino) and the importance of birth order for the Hinihon in Papua New Guinea (Meinerzag).
Section 2, ‘Personal naming and cultural transitions’, explores the role of naming in social classifications. Chapters examine motivations for bestowing Brazilian babies with nonstandard names (Shlomit Landman), age-related naming practices in Madagascar (Susan Kus & Victor Rajarijaona), the contrast of academic versus local language classifications in Indigenous Australia (Jill Vaughan & Ruth Singer), and nicknaming of white slave owners in Zimbabwe by their slaves (Chigidi). Names shift meaning as personal names become landscape names (Willie Lungisani Chigidi), people move through their life cycles (Kus & Raharijaona), and perspectives of community relations change (Vaughan & Singer). These chapters demonstrate that names do not remain stable over time, and changes in both personal and place names provide useful insights into how societies view community history and relationships with kin, landscapes, and other peoples.
Section 3, ‘Anthroponyms as religious beliefs and practice’, examines the role of spiritual practice in naming. Three chapters focus on African communities, dealing heavily with the topic of death prevention names (Danson Sylvester Kahyana, Philip Manda Imoh, and Eyo O. Mensah). The chapters in this section remind the reader of the importance of verbal art and speech play in naming. For example, Kayana's chapter applies a literary analysis that demonstrates the role of irony, personification, and metaphor in death prevention names. Duoduo Xu's chapter, meanwhile, analyzes sacred chants to reveal the origins of spirit names in Tibet.
Section 4, ‘Cultural implications in anthroponym typology’, discusses the role of colonialism, missionization, and gender on naming practices. Chapters examine the influence of Spanish on Mazahua names (Miguel Reyes Contreras), the influence of Christian missionaries on Tongan names (Svenja Völkel), and the impact of Islam on Azerbaijani names (Reyhan Habibli). Gender appears as a major topic in Ndlovu's critique of patriarchy in Ndebele naming morphology, Völkel's discussion of the Tongan patrilineal kin system, and Hablibi's analysis of how a historical preference for boy children is reflected through Azerbaijani names today. These chapters demonstrate the impact of power relations on onomastics, which appear through analyses of gender (Habibli, Ndlovu), age and parental status (Chia-Jung Pan), and community titles (Völkel).
Over the course of these four sections, the authors certainly achieve the stated goals of the volume to ‘overcome the strong bias towards research on Indo-European languages’, ‘focus on the study of personal names from an anthropological-linguistic perspective’, and ‘to demonstrate the communicative and cultural pragmatics in names’.
