Iraqw personal names and naming practices: Some linguistic observations

Abstract

This article discusses the use of names, their meaning and the naming system among speakers of Iraqw, a Southern Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania. This preliminary documentation of personal naming practices considers naming as an important socio-cultural aspect of Iraqw people: names are not arbitrary but rather have historical and cultural functions and meanings. Names offer significant insights into the socio-cultural, historical, political, and personal circumstances of pregnancy, the child’s birth and family as well as environmental elements. The meanings of names reflect various activities and cultural practices in Iraqw. Further, namesaking is a common practice, whereby Iraqw name their children after the paternal ancestral names with the belief that ancestors may be near the child and protect it from all evils as well as recalling ancestors. The majority of personal names bear a high tone on the final syllable. Names are derived from ordinary nouns by marking high tone on this syllable. Moreover, they are derived from verbs, adjectives, and ideophones by using nominalising suffixes in addition to the final high tone. The majority of names are used to refer to both sexes, therefore the gender of the name cannot be determined by the gender of the noun from which the name is derived, rather, it can be determined by the sex of the referent. Contact with Datooga has resulted in heavy borrowing of Datooga names. Swahili, and recently Christianity too, have also influenced names and naming. The latter seems to strongly influence the semantics of names.