Ethnic personal names and multiple identities in Anglophone Caribbean speech communities in Latin America

Abstract

This study investigates the generation and maintenance of multiple personal names in an Anglophone Creole-speaking community of Panama. Nearly every Afro-Panamanian resident of the island of Bastimentos has two given names, one Spanish-derived and the other Creole-derived. The Creole or “ethnic name” is virtually the exclusive name used locally for reference and address. It is argued that these ethnic names are preferred for reference and address because they reflexively define who members of this speech community are in terms of culture and ancestry. A typology of nicknames and pseudonyms as well as a brief cross-cultural presentation of multiple or alternative personal names is provided. Ethnic name usage in Bastimentos is discussed within an acts of identity framework.

Jsem Phuoc, ale říkej mi Lucky

“…(Eriksen 2007, Barth 1969. Tento typ přezdívek může být označen také jako etnické jméno (Aceto 2002), kterým se jedinec přibližuje k určité společnosti, vyjadřuje k ní solidaritu a soudržnost. Používáno je tím pádem jen v daném socio-kulturním prostředí, do kterého náleží.…”

“…Užívání přezdívek, pseudonymů, dávání oficiálních jmen z řad majoritní společnosti je taktikou nejen Vietnamců v Čechách, ale i migrantů a cizinců v jiných zemích. Popsány jsou podobné případy například u Turků a migrantů z bývalé Jugoslávie v současném Němec-ku (Gerhard -Silke 2009), afro-panamských obyvatel ostrova Bastimentos (Aceto 2002) či Korejců v Torontu (Kim 2007). Tato pojmenování souvisí se zařazením a fungováním jedince v určité skupině, prostupují hranice mezi majoritní a minoritní společností či odkazují k etnické identitě.…”

What a language is good for: Language socialization, language shift, and the persistence of code-specific genres in St. Lucia

“…A relevant consideration here is whether or not the vocative use of a nickname can constitute a "complete utterance" in Bakhtin's sense. Aceto's (2002) analysis of nicknames as a socially embedded communicative practice in Caribbean (and other) contexts suggests that it can and often does, as do Butler's (1997) remarks on naming or addressing as a form of interpellation (in Althusser's sense). 36 The system of phonemic transcription used here for VESL is that used by Rickford 1987 for Guyanese; Rickford's system, in turn, is based on that devised by Cassidy 1961 for Jamaican.…”

Nicknames and the Lexicon of Sports

“…Hypocoristic nicknames function as both reference and address in speech. They also index the user as a member of the sport's community, as a player-participant or as a fan; as such, they function like the group-orienting ethnic names discussed by Aceto (2002). The usage of hypocoristics is evident in contexts such as interviews american speech 81.4 (2006) 404 with players, as the examples in (11) show.…”

“…Morgan, O'Neill, and Harré (1979) and Kany (1999) show similar patterns with children's nicknames. Nicknames may also identify the user with a group (Aceto 2002;de Klerk 2002), disambiguate among individuals in communities that have a small number of formal names (Collier and Bricker 1970;Dorian 1970), or indicate familiarity between the speaker and addressee (Dickey 1997;Chevalier 2004).…”