Naming Africans

Names are not just creative linguistic expressions, but they constitute valuable sources of historical and ethnographic documentation. In this regard, contemporary African names are instructive indicators of Westernization, Christianization and Islamization; three entwined processes that have had a profound impact on peoples on the continent in recent history.  Conversely, names can also conceal. Newly constructed names and recently adopted ones can hide information since such names often erase origins, heighten or blur traditional lines of distinctions amongst diverse social groups. The project therefore is about the epistemic value of African names which contributes to unveiling endogenous forms of knowledge. Given that names are revealing, disclosing the day of birth, sibling birth order, nature of birth, time of birth, gender, and state of the family at birth among other things that African communities have registered in personal appellations. For instance, the study of Yoruba names yields information on historical events, (ex: the history of slavery), social change (ex: shifting family structure) and other socio-historical processes. African societies have creatively embedded in personal names a variety of information. This project was conceived to document and analyze personal names and associated naming practices in a slew of African societies. It brings together a collection of chapters documenting diverse societies and naming practices on the geographically vast and ethnically diverse continent, including contributions on names from the countries of Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda. The contributors to this anthology are scholars of different African language-communities who investigate names and naming practices diachronically.  This comparative focus juxtaposing different African cultures and their embedded naming practices is one of the strengths of this anthology.