Naming ourselves and others

Autoethnographic onomastics: Transdisciplinary scholarship of personal names and ‘our-stories’

“…Instead, I call myself Latina and a scholar of colour, at least for now, until I can claim a better way to represent who I am. (Rivera Maulucci and Moore Mensah, 2015) I could identify with the experience of being 're-named' as this has been a common theme throughout my life and formed the basis for many of my vignettes in my autoethnographic article (Wheeler, 2016). However, the idea of a teacher actually screaming at a child, and enforcing an anglicized version of their name, was really quite shocking.…”

“…For example, he discusses the German and Danish naming conventions which influenced the composition and pronunciation of his name: Wilhelm Fritz Hermann Nicolaisen; he discusses the connections with the names of his various male relatives, commenting that he is onomastically as well as genetically related to his two grandfathers. He also makes the connection with the historical formation of surnames, which replaced patronymic systems of being named as 'son of', in a variety of cultures through time, including the Welsh and English languages (Moore, 1990;Morgan and Morgan, 1985;Rowlands and Rowlands, 2013) (Nicolaisen, 1999) As with María's story (Rivera Maulucci and Moore Mensah, 2015), I found the information here accessible and useful, bringing an insight into cultural practices, with an illustrative case study. There is even more similarity, however, when Nicolaisen reveals that his actual name has probably been his least used appellation.…”

“…I then set about trying to prepare an introduction, for which I conducted scoping exercises of the electronic databases (Booth et al, 2012). The main keyword of 'name' was obviously quite broad and ambiguous and I did not locate much of a literature, apart from one particularly excellent article by two authors exploring the careers of their own names, and some horrific experiences related to them (Rivera Maulucci and Moore Mensah, 2015).…”

Two Short “As” and a Rolling “R”

“…Somehow this "re-naming" does bring to the fore the "complex cultural, historical, social, and political ramifications of naming" (Rivera Maulucci & Moore Mensah, 2015). This Anglicization of my Welsh name is a microcosm example of the wider political and cultural context I inhabit.…”

“…Then I read one of the only articles I can find on the problematics of "naming" and its cultural significance. I read María's story of her Kindergarten teacher screaming at her for what she perceived as the incorrect transcription of the letter "I," despite María actually quite correctly transcribing her name with the culturally appropriate accent mark (Rivera Maulucci & Moore Mensah, 2015). I am appalled.…”