WORLD TRENDS IN ANTHROPONOMASTICS

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This literature review realizes that the uniqueness and meaningfulness of personal names becomes apparent when some insights are drawn from American and European scholars who have made important and notable contributions in onomastics studies. The consulted literature reveals that considerable research has been done on personal names in different parts of the world. According to Pfukwa (2007), American scholars have been very active in the study of personal names; for example, Lawson (1973), Nicolaisen (1978), McGoff (2005), Bright (2005), Smith (in McGoff 2005), Lance (in McGoff, 2005) and Callary (in McGoff 2005).Van Langendonck (1987, 2001) and Eichler (1987) have spearheaded European research on personal names while Lawson (1988) has worked on Jewish onomastics. This existing research on personal names has dwelled extensively on the meanings of personal names and its related aspects such as the motivation behind naming, but very little has been written on naming and its relationship with gender.

Scholars in America and Europe have made significant contributions to onomastics studies; focusing on personal names as well. English people choose names based on variables such as the historical or religious links of the personal name. This research looks at how personal names can be gendered.

According to Dunkling (1981), the English people also consider family traditions (i.e. using grandparents’ names) when naming. Ferguson in Rosenthal (2005) is concerned with the etymology of family names in France, England and Germany as these are related to the Teutonic name system. Ferguson states:

“The etymology of proper names is the only branch of the subject which can in any sense be popular, for what men, even those who care not to enquire the language they speak, feel some interest or curiosity in knowing the meaning of the names they bear” (Ferguson in Rosenthal, 2005: 3).

A study of Dutch personal names by Van Langendonck (1987, 1983) sheds valuable light on the use of the semantic theory in the characterization of personal names.This study on Shona personal names as they reflect the gender status of the name bearers hoped to benefit greatlyfrom the semantic theory.Van Langendonck (2001) observes that personal names constitute the most diversified category of proper names for they fulfill the functions of addressing and identifying a wide possibility of categorizations based on gender.

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Henning (1995) in Makondo (2009) identifies two prominent naming orders; the Western order and the Eastern order. The family name is commonly known as the western order and is usually used in most European countries like Britain, America, Australia and Zimbabwe. The first name is called the Christian name after the Norman Conquest in Britain. Theophonic names are very popular among Arabic, Semitic and many other languages. France, Germany and Scandinavia have lists of approved first names to be given to children or else they will not be legally recognized. It was therefore the mandate of this study to assess if the same practice is found among the Zezuru naming system.

Bright (2003) in Pfukwa (2007) uses an anthropological linguistic approach to study the names of North American Indians. He unearths the myth behind descriptive names which are often termed anthroponyms (personal names) and toponyms (geographical names) in the field of onomastics. Hansen (1948) in Lawson (1988) studies nicknames and relates them to feelings of inferiority. Dexter (1948) in Lawson (1988) carries out research which finds that those with nicknames are more popular. James (1979) in Lawson (1988) also devotes his research to nicknames. The work on nicknames is insightful to this study because nicknames have an influence on the name bearer much like gendered names do. However the study on nicknames differs in that this current studyinvestigates the personal names given to individuals upon birth in the Zezuru culture.

Personal names are used by Euro-Asian-American people to define the world, develop cultural identities, and pass on certain feelings. Arno (1994) conducts extensive research on the use of first names in Fiji and among the Hopi people in America. Fieldman (1990) states that for the Penan and Inuit people of Canada, personal names are inherited from the dead. He adds that the Inuit people stand above others for regarding the chosen name as entering and merging with the child’s soul at birth. This study benefits from the views emanating from the world trends in that the Zezuru society – like any other society – cannot resist borrowing aspects of the global naming trends such as the fact that personal names reflect the cultural identities of the name bearers. It is in this cultural aspect that gender stereotyping is usually found. This study benefited greatlyfrom these world trends; especially the fact that there are factors that come into play when choosing a personal name for an individual.

The Quran (49:11) dictates that Muslim personal names should not be distorted, mutilated or corrupted into something else, as they are expressive of a whole history, culture, religion and

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realm. This study wanted to establish the importance of personal names among the Shona and see the extent to which these names reflect the gender status of the name bearers.

According to Dumisani in Lieberson (2000), some languages do not have separate names for men and women. While in other languages,regular inflections are used respectively on the names for grammatical gender difference to indicate the gender status of the names.So that “John and Jane” for instance, who are both from the same Hebrew name, are represented as “Johann and Johanna” in German respectively. These world-naming trends considerably informed this study; in that while the existing research establishes that there are separate names for men and women, this study wanted to find out exactly what in Zezuru personal names make them gendered. For his research, Dumisani in Sue and Telles (2007) studies the naming practices among the Italians and Jews in the United States in 1910.It emerges that the names Mary and Joseph were popular among the female and male Italians as Sara and Louis was among Jewish females and males respectively.

The colonization of many parts of the world, including Zimbabwe, significantly affected or influenced world anthroponomastic trends. Early settlers brought with them ‘imported names’ of foreign or exotic origin into the new areas they settled in, thereby injecting their “...alien culture...” Ramose (1999:130). These personal names were also used for subordinating and assimilating people. Additionally, personal names were used asa form of claiming and confirming possession over space (Neethling 2005). Frederiskse (1982) remarks that only those bolder in opposition to white dominance maintained their names. Hudson (1980:78) states that “those who adopted new names did so through learning from the colonizers by direct instruction or by watering their behaviour.” Some names were chosen for sentimental, humorous, literacy, religious or high cultural reasons. This is the reason why some Zezuru names cannot be traced locally. This research gained some meaningful or insightful views on the study of personal names from other continents.