Ethnic personal names and multiple identities in Anglophone Caribbean speech communities in Latin America
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Language in Society 31, 577–608. Printed in the United States of America
DOI: 10.1017.S0047404502314040
Ethnic personal names and multiple identities in Anglophone
Caribbean speech communities in Latin America
MICHAEL ACETO
Department of English
East Carolina University
Greenville, North Carolina 27858
acetom@mail.ecu.edu
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 com-
munity 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. (Creole, Panama, ethnicity,
nicknames, pseudonyms, identity, onomastics)*
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 43– 44
INTRODUCTION
The familiar Shakespearean assertion about the rose reflects the views of many
linguists who would argue that concepts exist in a framework for language and
thought, independent of the language-specific words that are eventually ap-
plied to them (Chomsky 1988:31–32). However, speakers of any given lan-
guage often have a number of names for referencing and addressing one another.
If we shift our perspective from a cognitive or language-universals approach to
a context in which meaning is socially constructed by the use of language(s)
spoken within a specific culture, multiple names for individuals make a differ-
ence. That is, different names for the same referent may be valued differently
within specific cultural contexts, and the question of whether absolute syn-
onyms (regarding personal names or otherwise) exist in any language is open-
ended (see Cruse 1986:268–70). The names humans choose for themselves and
© 2002 Cambridge University Press 0047-4045002 $9.50 577MICHAEL ACETO
for others offer windows into how a culture views these individuals, or how
those individuals prefer to be perceived by society at large, according to the
identities, roles, expectations, hierarchies, or values constructed within a social
space. Goodenough clarifies this culturally driven context of names and nam-
ing practices:
Different naming and address customs necessarily select different things about
the self for communication and consequent emphasis. In some instances what
is selected for emphasis will reflect and reinforce dominant public values; in
others what is selected will reflect personal concerns . . . In any event, it will be
something about which people are concerned, something about their own iden-
tities or the identities of others that they want to emphasize. What it will be
depends on the nature of the identity problems their social circumstances pre-
vailingly create for them. (1965:275; emphasis in original)
In addition, Bean (1978:xiv) reminds us that “participants in a speech act may
bring almost any combination of social identities to it.”
This article aims to describe the pattern of personal names and ethnic name
usage in the Anglophone speech community of Bastimentos, Panama, in Central
America. As citizens of the Republic of Panama, Anglophone Creole speakers are
forced to negotiate two linguistic and cultural worlds. Panama is a largely Spanish-
speaking country in which political, economic, and social centers are controlled
in varieties of Spanish (regional or otherwise). However, within the linguistic
mosaic of Panama, often unknown even to citizens of the country itself, are more
than a hundred thousand speakers of at least three varieties of English-derived
Creole.1 This study focuses on how the residents of Bastimentos (or Ol’ Bank, as
it is known locally; even this dual designation for their community is important in
understanding the dichotomy of cultural0ethnic identities described below) re-
sist, in varying degrees, the ambient cultural pressure to Hispanicize, and how
they are able to maintain alternative cultural models, of which naming systems
constitute one component.
This resistance is accomplished through a number of strategies that have
their roots in the history of the community. First, the residents of Bastimentos
are descended from English-derived Creole speakers whose ancestors arrived
approximately one century ago (or more, in some cases) from islands in the
Anglophone West Indies. As Afro-Panamanians of Anglophone West Indian
descent, the people of Bastimentos largely conduct their lives in a local English-
derived Creole, often called “Guari-Guari” or simply “English.” This prefer-
ence for Guari-Guari in local contexts demarcates the population of Bastimentos
from other regions in Panama, even within its own province of Bocas del Toro
(see Map 1). Second, and more important for the purposes of this article, an
alternative or ethnic naming system (in contrast to the “official” system of given
names in Spanish) has emerged or has been maintained that favors locally de-
rived Anglophone Creole names (e.g., Skip) over official Hispanophone names
578 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
(e.g., Demetro) for usage in local contexts. Hispanophone first or personal names,
however, are the only names to appear in writing and on any official docu-
ments (passports, birth certificates, diplomas, marriage licenses, etc.). This pref-
erence for referencing and addressing persons with Anglophone Creole names
in local contexts (or, more precisely, whenever Creole is spoken) is discussed
within a framework of illuminating patterns in resistance, cultural0linguistic
maintenance and identity, diglossia and bilingualism, and cross-cultural prac-
tices of naming and nicknames.
Fasold (1990:2) writes, “In most languages, there are two main kinds of ad-
dress forms: names and second-person pronouns.” Though address forms in gen-
eral have been studied from the perspective of the dichotomy of power and
solidarity (e.g., Brown & Gilman 1972, Brown & Levinson 1987), the primary
language of the Bastimentos speech community demands a related but alternative
perspective. Its English-derived Creole has no contrasting familiar and deferen-
tial pronouns of power and solidarity; surnames are not used locally for reference
and address; and formal titles are rare, except perhaps Teacher and the diminish-
ing use of an older title system of address that combines Mister or Miss with an
individual’s personal name (not surname), which today sees limited use only in
addressing elderly people. This article is less about systems of address and their
usage as typically discussed in the literature than about the generation and main-
tenance of multiple personal names. However, social factors are certainly at play
in the use of alternative naming strategies in Bastimentos. My perspective is that,
despite the irrelevance of contrastive pronouns and formal systems of address for
this speech community, solidarity is created in this cultural space through the
construction of ethnicity. Ethnic names comprise one component of ethnicity, as
would language, ancestry, religious customs, food traditions, etc. That is, even
without the obvious contrasts of pronominal and titular options, solidarity can
still be implicated as at play in the generation, maintenance, and usage of ethnic
names.
Immigration in the past 150 years is largely responsible for bringing Creole
English to both Panama and Costa Rica. In the post-emancipation period, West
Indians of African descent immigrated to the Caribbean coast of Central America
in search of work on railroad construction projects and banana plantations. It is
often forgotten that the construction of the Panama Canal was carried out largely,
not by Central Americans or workers from the USA, but by imported Anglophone
West Indian labor. Many of these West Indians remained behind on either end of
the Canal, in Panama City on the Pacific and Colon on the Caribbean, and they
represent one significant source of Creole-speaking communities in this region of
Panama.
In the Caribbean corner of Bocas del Toro, near the Costa Rican border, where
my fieldwork was conducted, the historical situation is somewhat different. After
work on the Canal was completed, some immigrants moved to this area looking
for work on fruit plantations. These Anglophone Creole-speaking immigrants
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 579MICHAEL ACETO
quickly outnumbered the descendents of older slave and Creole-speaking com-
munities, which derived historically from Providencia and San Andrés islands.2
The population of Bastimentos proper – the town center – is approximately
600 persons, and approximately 97 percent are Afro-Panamanians of West Indian
descent. A few Amerindian Guaymí families also live on the edges of the town.
Scattered throughout the island are more Guaymí families living in the bush,
thought to comprise another 300– 400 persons. Thus, the entire population of the
island is about one thousand.
Map 1: The Province of Bocas del Toro
In Bastimentos, Afro-Panamanians mostly speak Creole English as a first lan-
guage among themselves, and many non-Afro-Panamanians (those of mostly Am-
erindian and0or European ancestry) often speak Guari-Guari as a second or a
third language. Yet even the youngest residents of the island are able to hear
Panamanian Spanish spoken between residents and outsiders, in the media, and,
less frequently, among residents themselves.
Residents are typically not taught to read and write in any form of English;
however, a few have access to print media in Standard (usually American) En-
glish. Before the nationalist movement in Panama led by General Omar Torri-
jos in the late 1960s and 1970s, public-school instruction among Creole-
speaking populations was allowed by the national government to occur in
varieties of Caribbean English (teachers were often recruited from Anglophone
islands of the Caribbean). This situation began to change about 30 years ago,
and today no public school is permitted to deliver general curriculum instruc-
tion in English. The public educational system does not recognize Creole; Span-
580 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
ish is the only medium of instruction.3 Bastimentos Creole is purely an oral
language.
In Bastimentos, there are no media representing Creole English forms, whether
radio, television, newspapers, or other local publications. There is electricity in
the town center, and many people have televisions receiving programs broadcast
in Spanish. There were no satellite dishes in 1994 and 1995 when I carried out my
fieldwork, so residents were unable to receive television broadcasts in any En-
glish language variety.
Among my male consultants, monolingual Creole proficiency was more com-
mon than among Afro-Panamanian females, who are often bilingual in Creole
and local varieties of Spanish. Some of the island’s older residents, both male and
female, are monolingual speakers of Creole. There is limited familiarity with
metropolitan English on the part of a few residents who have been educated
outside the Bocas del Toro region. Most island residents educated outside (e.g., in
Panama City, Colon, or the USA) have not returned to live there, even if they visit
from time to time.
This study is part of a larger series of articles on the Creole language of Bas-
timentos (Aceto 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999), the results of approximately six months
of fieldwork on the island on two separate occasions in 1994 and 1995. For details
on specific methodological considerations and more historical information on the
Bastimentos community, consult Aceto 1995.
A LT E R N AT I V E N A M I N G S T R AT E G I E S
The study of naming practices and their relationship to social structure has been
of some interest to researchers, particularly in anthropology. See Collier & Bricker
1970, Price & Price 1972 for striking case studies in the Americas; Burton 1999
is a compendious review article; and Bean 1978 is perhaps the most detailed
individual study. Unfortunately, in the literature on naming and onomastics, any
alternative name – a name used in addition to a formal or official name – may be
ambiguously labeled a “nickname,” perhaps because many researchers come from
cultures in which multiple personal names are infrequent, limited largely to nick-
names in which a formal or official name is more or less phonetically reduced
(e.g., Michael . Mike or Mick). Thus, the discussion in this section has at least
two main purposes. First, it is an effort to encourage some rigor and distinction in
regard to what appear to be related but different naming terms and strategies. To
this end, I provide a typology of the terms nicknames, pseudonyms, and what I
call ethnic names, and their application and relationship to naming practices
and identity in Bastimentos, as well as among other cultural groups. Second,
though I argue below that ethnic names are neither nicknames nor pseudonyms,
this naming category reveals characteristics shared by both of the others. This
observation has motivated the discussion of nicknames and pseudonyms pre-
sented here in order to understand what components of each constitute this new
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 581MICHAEL ACETO category, ethnic names (see Dorian 1970 for discussion of “by-names”).4 A brief review of related work in naming systems is also presented and discussed within a cross-cultural perspective. I claim that alternative names or multiple naming practices signal the emphasis or construction of an imminent or latent identity (or, inversely, in some cases, the rejection or concealment of a previous identity) correlated with one or more socially constructed components, such as language, kinship, social status, ethnicity, nationality, spirituality, or gender. Nicknames A nickname is typically a name given to an individual in addition to his or her “given” or official first name.5 It is created and maintained by friends, family, and various social groups, but it most often originates from those groups organized and controlled by children, though a nickname’s use may extend well beyond the boundary of adolescence (see Alford 1988, Morgan et al. 1979). A nickname often highlights characteristics or stigmas, physical or social, to which the recip- ient is reluctant to call attention. Morgan et al. add, “Nicknames very often home in on just those characteristics he would prefer to forget” (1979:5). The feature that seems crucially to define nicknames is that they are most often assigned to individuals against their will and are usually maintained by “the children’s au- tonomous social world” (Morgan et al. 1979:3). Alford writes, “It appears that abusive or derogatory nicknames are more common than neutral or positive nick- names” (1988:82). Recipients rarely generate their own nicknames, even if the nickname subsequently “sticks” and the recipient begins self-referring by the new name. Furthermore, nicknames seem to be used more often for reference than for address (Alford 1988:82). They often focus on external factors (external to the phonetic shape of the original or official first or last name), such as per- ceived physical or behavioral abnormalities, rather than on internal factors (pho- netic features of a name that may inspire the creation of a nickname; see below).6 Furthermore, externally derived nicknames seem to be the ones most objected to by their recipients. “Children are aware of the social power of names and are very sensitive to the names they receive from their peers” (Kohl & Hinton 1972:127). Kohl & Hinton call this category of names “peernames,” a label that appropri- ately emphasizes the role of the name-giver (rather than the recipient) in the naming process. Nicknames may be understood via internal or external strategies. An internally derived nickname may be based on a phonetic similarity with or a reduction of a recipient’s given or even last name (e.g., Laurie , Laurel or Lippy , Lipman). Many of these reduced nicknames may be additionally or directly affixed with a diminutive (e.g., an 0-i0 among English speakers, as in Joey , Joe , Joseph, or a diminutive 0-it-0 infix among Spanish speakers, as in Maurita , Maura; some- times pet names or diminutives are referred to as hypocorisms). However, not all internally derived nicknames are the result of a reduction of a specific name. They may result from coincidental phonetic similarity or rhyme between the 582 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)
E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
recipient’s original name (first or last) and the nickname, e.g. Michael . Motor-
cycle. In short, an internally derived nickname uses one of the recipient’s original
names as the point of construction or inspiration: A linguistic quality, usually
phonetic but in some cases semantic, associated with the recipient’s original
name(s) is the point of departure for the creation of the nickname.
Externally derived formations may result from qualities (physical, emotional,
intellectual, or cultural) perceived as attributable to the recipient (e.g., Fats Dom-
ino was named for his size).7 Without a doubt, Aristocles is better known by the
name Plato, a reference to his broad shoulders; Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi is
certainly better recognized as Botticelli, a reference to his shape and its similarity
to a “little barrel.” Another external path by which nicknames may be formed
derives from a famous, striking, notorious, or shameful incident. For example,
jazz alto saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley received his nickname not
because of his large size, as might be assumed, but because of his impressive
appetite: Cannonball is an alteration of his original nickname, Cannibal. Nick-
names may also be derived externally as the result of cultural stereotypes; thus,
sources may include place of origin, profession, or physical appearance. (For an
impressively complete list of nicknames and0or epithets associated with specific
ethnic groups, consult Allen 1983.) Pulgram (1954:11–18) notes that many of
these same sources for externally derived nicknames are the origin of many Indo-
European, Semitic, Chinese, West African, and Native American surnames. That
is, what began as an “ekename,” or nickname, has diachronically evolved into a
surname.
Goodenough discusses the variety of personal names found among two soci-
eties in Oceania. He draws two basic conclusions: Names often function “as
constant reminders to people of things about their identities [they] want to be
reminded of” or “they are things about which most people want to remind their
fellows” (1965:275). Bean states, “All speech is potentially an indexical sign of
the speaker, the addressee, the time or place of speaking” (1978:4).8 Nicknames
may be characterized as those things (events, characteristics, social hierarchies,
etc.) that members of a community want to emphasize to their fellows, even if the
recipients of the nicknames prefer to be reminded of or to index other aspects of
their lives. Pseudonyms, in contrast, emphasize aspects of identity that the recip-
ient of the name wishes to make known publicly, perhaps at the expense of more
private aspects of his or her identity.
Pseudonyms, assumed names, aliases and name changes
The two Greek morphemes that make up the word pseudonym mean literally
‘false name’. However, Room (1981:5) makes the case that a pseudonym may be
more accurately defined as an “assumed name,” since these names are most often
taken on consciously and explicitly as a kind of name change (legal or otherwise),
with little or no effort to deny the individual’s original name, even if the original
name is rarely referred to. That definition is assumed here. The crucial distinction
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 583MICHAEL ACETO between nicknames and pseudonyms is that recipients usually select their own pseudonyms; nicknames are usually chosen for them. Furthermore, pseudonyms are changes that apply more often to a surname than to a given name, though some pseudonyms involve changes to both. Nicknames primarily target given names, though surnames may also serve as their inspiration. Pseudonyms are common among individuals who assume a new, more public identity (e.g., in politics, in social and religious contexts, and especially in enter- tainment). For example, “Sojourner Truth” was an assumed name, selected by the recipient herself to represent her new role as a seeker of black and women’s equality in the 19th-century USA. Members of many Roman Catholic orders choose new names to represent their new spiritual lives: Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Black Muslims often drop their surnames, which they sometimes identify as “slave names” (typically Anglophone-derived names stem- ming from the history of European colonialism in the Atlantic region), when admitted into the Nation of Islam (Malcolm X [Shabazz] was previously named Malcolm Little; Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay).9 Pseudonyms are also frequent among actors; before the 1960s, actors with “ethnic-sounding” names often adopted more “Anglo-Saxon” pseudonyms – Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis were originally named Issur Danielovitch and Bernard Schwartz. Pseudonyms or assumed names can be distinguished from genuinely “false names,” or aliases, by which an individual attempts to maintain a new identity through the creation of a new name, while seeking to deny any historical con- nection to the previous name and its corresponding identity. Aliases are often assumed by criminal suspects who hope to disassociate themselves from criminal acts linked with their previous names. What aliases share with a subset of pseud- onyms or name changes discussed below is the goal of concealment of a prior identity. As with most alternative naming strategies – whether pseudonyms, aliases, nicknames, or ethnic names – they often indicate the emergence or creation of a new social identity. Within the context of the immigrant experience in the USA, some ethnic groups have traditionally sought to change their names by Anglicizing what might be perceived as an “ethnic” surname (any surname that impressionistically seems not an Anglophone name). Christopher (1989:31) claims that the Anglicization of immigrant names within the territory that would become the USA can be traced back at least to the 18th century, when some German immigrants Anglicized surnames (e.g., Mueller and Schmidt into Miller and Smith). By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Ashkenazic Jews immigrating to the USA also trans- lated original Germanic names into their Anglophone counterparts (Schwartz and Klein into Black and Little). Both surname translation and outright name change in the USA are often associated with modern American cultural myths such as “the melting pot” phenomenon, or considered explicit attempts at assimilation to a general Anglo- American culture. However, this reductionism fails to distinguish between phe- 584 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)
E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S nomena based on the goals of assimilation and those based on other, less transparent motives. The “melting pot” perspective assumes that all ethnic groups immigrating to a specific host country share similar pre-immigration experi- ences, motives for immigration, and motivation for name changes precipitated by immigration. It is revealing to consider the name changes that followed the major wave of Jewish immigration to the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Ashkenazic Jews residing in Europe were often legally compelled to abandon their original Hebrew-based names and to assume names derived from the local language of power. The national or regional governments in question (France, Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony in the 19th cen- tury) often cited goals of assimilation, taxation, conscription, and even “civili- zation” as explicit reasons for forcing name changes on Jews (see Kaganoff 1977 for compulsory name adoption by European Jews, as well as an excellent discus- sion of name alteration and changes among Jews in general). Once the fluid history of Jewish naming practices is revealed, one further name change in the Americas hardly seems an act of assimilation for a people forced over centuries to become flexible and adaptive. In fact, name changes may have been preferred by Jews not so much to assimilate (though this goal was certainly a factor for some, as for a subset of all immigrants) but to hide their ethnicity from non-Jews. Advertising their Jewish heritage in the past had brought few positive rewards to Jews vis-à-vis the dominant culture wherever they had resided. This distinction is important because what appears superficially as an act of assimilation may be more appropriately viewed, instead, as a means of cultural maintenance achieved via the strategies of secrecy and concealment (see Scott 1985). The case of alternative names among Jews is also useful to contrast with the pattern displayed by residents of Bastimentos. Whereas some Jews wished to “de-ethnicize” their names in order to conceal their ethnic identity, the Afro- Panamanian population in this study most often publicly proclaims and empha- sizes its Anglophone Creole ethnicity vis-à-vis the dominant Hispanophone national identity in Panama through the maintenance of ethnic personal names. Secret names or concealment of names is one motivation for and a correlate of alternative naming systems in several of the ethnic groups considered below (e.g., the Ndyuka and the Saramaka of Suriname). The abolishing of names as important cultural symbols by local governments has been carried out in other cultural and geographical contexts as well. For ex- ample, Johnson states that the colonial British in Sierra Leone “abolished native names wholesale, considering them ‘heathenish,’and substituted European names instead” (1921:87). However, as early as the late 19th century, West Africans in Sierra Leone – perhaps as a response to earlier forced name changes by the Brit- ish – began to alter Anglophone-derived names in an effort to confirm an African identity vis-à-vis the pervasive European colonial influence. “A number of Cre- oles . . . ‘reformed’ their names as well, either shedding their ‘foreign’ surname to Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 585
MICHAEL ACETO
adopt one with an African ‘sound,’ or adding an African name to their European
one” (Spitzer 1974:117). Tamura (1994:170) describes how Japanese students were
assigned English names as replacements for their original names at schools in Ha-
waii in the early 20th century. Nonetheless, many Japanese in Hawaii maintained
Japanese names at home and Anglophone names in general public life, illustrating
a dichotomy found among the residents of Bastimentos as well.
Surname changes may also be invoked in response to age or at the threshold of
a ritual event. Assumed names have been traditionally associated with females
participating in the ritual of marriage. In many cultures, female surname replace-
ment is the norm: The woman discards her family name and assumes that of her
husband. In many societies today, there are several alternatives associated with
marriage name change: The husband’s name may be attached to the wife’s fami-
ly’s name by hyphenation; the wife may reverse the order and put the husband’s
name first and her original name second; or she may make no name change at all.
It is becoming more common for both husband and wife to bear a compounded
form of both surnames, with prior agreement on the order of the names in ques-
tion. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is typical that all single males and females
have two official surnames: The first is the father’s surname, derived from his
father, and the second is the mother’s surname, derived from her father. For a
male, this compounded surname appears on all official documents, even if he is
more commonly known by simply his father’s surname. Upon marriage, females
typically discard their mother’s surname and replace it with the husband’s fa-
ther’s surname.
One further type of name change is teknonymy, the practice of designating
various kinship roles and hierarchies, through names. Alford describes teknon-
ymy as “easily the most common type of formal name change” (1988:90). Geertz
& Geertz characterize teknonymy as the “progressive suppression of personal
names and its regular substitution of what are essentially impersonal status terms”
(1964:94). Alford believes teknonymy to be “a means of showing respect while
avoiding the use of personal names” (1988:93). For a summary, consult Alford
(1988:90–94); see also Suzuki 1978 for a discussion of teknonyms among the
Japanese. This kinship-based system of name change does not figure among the
Anglophone Afro-Caribbean populations that are the focus of this article.
Ethnic names
This new category of naming has been created to denote that the names preferred
for reference and address in Bastimentos are neither nicknames nor pseudonyms.
However, the category may be applied appropriately to many cultural spaces.
Furthermore, the designation “ethnic names” may overlap with other terminol-
ogy that has been created for culture-specific naming systems (e.g., “by-names”
in Dorian 1970). Ethnic names reveal characteristics of both nicknames and
pseudonyms, as well as their own unique social correlates related to issues of
ethnic identity, cultural maintenance, solidarity, and resistance. The term “ethnic
586 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
names” may also be considered equivalent to a term more specific to the culture
in question. For example, “Creole names” would largely cover one component of
the duality of names in Bastimentos. However, I use the term “ethnic names” to
emphasize the fact that competing national and ethnic identities often require
discrete names that are invoked through the use of ethnic or alternative lan-
guages (“alternative” vis-à-vis more socially or politically powerful and domi-
nant cultures and languages in a pattern related to “broad diglossia”; see Fasold
1984:53). Ethnic names are “in part about the sociocultural world and in part in
their connection to the social situation in which they occur” (Bean 1978:xiii;
emphasis in original).
Pulgram (1954:11–12) describes how a “signum” or “byname” became fash-
ionable among peoples living under the eastern edges of the Roman Empire (Egypt,
Syria, Asia Minor). Many of these peoples were bilingual in Latin and their native
vernacular. They adopted Latin (or Greek) names for convenience in dealing with
Romans. However, additional names were often added from local vernaculars,
and these often replaced their “official” names used for administrative inter-
actions with the Empire. Pulgram’s description is startlingly similar to the bilin-
gual situation in Bastimentos and in other present-day cultural spaces. In many of
the studies discussed below, an “official” name corresponds to the so-called “real”
name (most likely because of its association with literacy), even if it is rarely used
or even remembered by recipients, while the name of widest currency within the
speech community is called the “nickname,” even if that term fails to capture the
extensive distribution and usage of what I have labeled ethnic names, or whatever
may correlate with other social identities besides ethnicity in specific speech
communities. Pulgram makes the case that, etymologically, a “nickname” or an
“ekename” was a “byname” (called here an ethnic name), despite the modern
perception of nicknames as shortened forms of given names, or names given to
individuals against their will (see n. 6).
Within Panama, where Spanish is the language of power and social control,
the residents of Bastimentos have resisted pressure to Hispanicize their sur-
names, which are overwhelmingly Anglophone (e.g., Powell, Livingston, Mitch-
ell ). Official Spanish-derived first names are found on all government documents,
and they identify individuals as citizens of the Republic of Panama. However, the
residents of Bastimentos have purposely sought to “de-Hispanicize” their official
Spanish-derived given names by the strategy of ethnic names; thus, a woman
officially named Liliana is known locally as Yaya instead (see Table 1). The
ethnic name is most often Creole-derived etymologically and phonologically,
though a few may actually be from an African language or even from Spanish.
Ethnic names are typically given when the person is a child or adolescent. More
important, it is this name that an individual recognizes when it is uttered in con-
versation, and by which she is identified as an adult on the island, even though the
name is rarely, if ever, written down. The ethnic name identifies a resident of
Bastimentos as an Afro-Panamanian Anglophone Creole speaker whose ances-
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 587MICHAEL ACETO
TABLE 1. Sample of ethnic names
in Bastimentos.
Official Spanish
Ethnic name given name
1. Anna Mae Nidia
2. Betbet Roberto
3. Betty Roberto
4. Boss Rafael
5. Charley Herminia
6. Chichi Veronica
7. Chola Viviana
8. Chubb Alberto
(Indian, Boy)
9. Cooley Elizabeth
10. Coon Alvaro
11. Cootie Enrique
12. Dodosh Fulvia
13. Dune Oscar
14. Gadí Lucrezia
15. Gang Enrique
16. Hochi Harvey
17. Jetbo Arquimedes
18. Luch Florentina
19. Pápa Enrique
20. Peck Oscar
21. Puma Michon
22. Silk Michon
23. Skip Demetro
24. Soap Dario
25. Tatash Harvey
26. Tiger Tito
27. Yaya Liliana
28. Yogo Graciella
tors came from the West Indies. Nearly everyone in the town center is familiar to
everyone else by his or her ethnic name – but there is often little knowledge,
except among immediate family members, of an individual’s official Spanish-
derived first name.
What ethnic names in the Bastimentos speech community have in common with
the patterns of nicknames described above is that they are often, but not exclu-
sively, generated by children or adolescents. In theory, however, anyone may as-
sign an ethnic0Creole name at any time, and instances arise of individuals with
more than one ethnic name. However, ethnic names in the Bastimentos commu-
nity differ substantially from the typical pattern of nicknames associated with chil-
588 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
dren in that the former are rarely, if ever, a source of shame, as nicknames
(especially externally derived ones) often are. Furthermore, ethnic names are the
names that recipients actually prefer to be recognized by in both forms of refer-
ence and address within the community, especially when referenced through the
use of the local Creole language.10 That is, the typical pattern of nicknames foisted
on individuals against their will does not capture the dynamics of ethnic name-
giving in Bastimentos. Residents participate in the maintenance of their ethnic
names and even sanction the use of those names in a manner reminiscent of pseud-
onym assumption. Furthermore, unlike nicknames, ethnic names in Bastimentos
are almost never internally derived. They are also rarely Spanish-derived (except
in a few female alternative names). The motive for avoiding internally derived eth-
nic names is that a reduced form of a Spanish-derived name (e.g., Kike , Hen-
rique) is still identified easily as a Hispanophone name, and residents of
Bastimentos prefer Creole-derived names as markers of ethnicity and solidarity.
Both pseudonyms and nicknames often index an emergent or latent social
identity. Ethnic names in Bastimentos are similar in that they index both ethnic
and linguistic identities (Anglophone, West Indian, and0or Creole) that, though
highly valued and salient locally among the Ol’ Bank population, are generally
not valued or even recognized by outgroup members of Panamanian society at
large. At this point, we may generalize that ethnic names are generated by exter-
nal naming processes for purposes of identity creation, often associated with
cultural maintenance. However, ethnic names are not created to obscure or con-
ceal a specific ethnic origin, as is often the case with pseudonyms, but rather to
distinguish or emphasize specific ancestry. Though the ethnic name is preferred
in local Creole contexts by most speakers, individuals most often revert to their
official Spanish-derived names when outside this locally constructed Creole lan-
guage context. This characterization was often verified empirically in contexts in
which I spoke Spanish with consultants. I also observed this pattern while wit-
nessing conversations in Spanish throughout my six months on the island, during
an election campaign for a national representative from Bocas del Toro province
arriving from off-island, and when I attended a formal elementary-junior high
school gathering in which only Spanish was spoken. The relationship between
language choice and bilingualism and the preference for specific names that ref-
erence the languages in question are discussed in more detail below.
The dynamic of pseudonyms and assumed names described above in cases
of (ethnic) identity concealment is also relevant to the development and usage
of ethnic names in the Bastimentos speech community. In general, name changes
may function as the foundation for implicit cultural maintenance or conceal-
ment. However, if ethnic identity may be concealed within social contexts, the
reverse may also be true. Ethnic identity may also be asserted, emphasized, or
proclaimed in other social contexts. In Bastimentos, the creation and mainte-
nance of ethnic names reflects the development of dual social identities that
Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent must often construct and negotiate
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 589MICHAEL ACETO
in Panama as they move between Anglophone and Hispanophone worlds. Lo-
cally, Anglophone-derived names and West Indian-derived culture dominate on
Bastimentos island. Beyond the island, Spanish-derived Panamanian culture dom-
inates, with geographical pockets of Creole-speaking communities in Panama
City and Colon, and within the province of Bocas del Toro. Clearly, ethnic
names are just one component in the creation of these competing identities for
Bastimentos residents, but these names are salient markers of the dominance of
one language0culture over another in specific contexts. The contexts that in-
duce ethnic name usage match nearly precisely those in which Creole language
is spoken. That is, language choice invokes the usage of ethnic names in Bas-
timentos. Multilingualism often indexes different social identities, so it should
not be surprising that speakers often prefer different names as symbols of these
identities, which are often invoked by language choice. Other minority groups
in other cultural spaces exhibit similar patterns in the maintenance of ethni-
cally identifiable given names or surnames, in contrast to the dominant ambi-
ent ethnicity and0or language at large. For example, people of Italian, Latin
American, and Asian descent in the USA often maintain ethnically identifiable
surnames, even if their given names reflect Anglophone influence, and even if
the ancestral language has been replaced by American English.
The ethnic name is the designation an individual willingly recognizes within
the community as a form of address. In Bastimentos, individuals prefer their
ethnic names to the official names on their birth certificates. There are only few
contexts in which they use and recognize their official Spanish-derived names,
mostly contexts that require literacy in Spanish or explicit reference to names on
documents – interactions with police and educational institutions, voting, health
care, or (less often) introducing themselves to tourists (mainly North Americans
and Germans) who speak Spanish, unaware that the main native language of the
community is an English-derived Creole.
I encountered this contrast between official and ethnic name usage because of
a methodological strategy I was employing to gather grammatical material on
what was then an undocumented Creole language. When conducting interviews,
I decided to speak to informants in Spanish as much as possible to avoid leading
them toward a particular English-derived construction present in my own variety
of English. Since most of my interviews were in Spanish, I usually elicited the
official names of my consultants. As my proficiency in the local vernacular grew,
I relied less on Spanish and more on Guari-Guari to gather data and conduct
personal relationships. Often, when I referenced an individual’s Spanish-derived
name in various contexts and conversations, locals looked confused. Conversely,
often I didn’t understand the individual referenced by a specific name in conver-
sation because I knew only the Spanish-derived names and not the Creole0ethnic
ones. I began to realize that most individuals had two names, and then I focused
on referencing the Creole-derived name because it was the one better recognized
by an individual and the community at large.
590 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
Table 1 is a representative sample that illustrates this pattern of ethnic names
(the spelling of these names represents orthographic conventions in both Spanish
and English rather than narrow linguistic transcriptions based on the Inter-
national Phonetic Alphabet).
The ultimate etymological origins of these names lie in three general sources:
English0Creole, Spanish, and, perhaps, a handful of African languages. How-
ever, no African languages are currently spoken or used in fragmentary or fos-
silized form among the population of Bastimentos,11 not even in the ritual
contexts described by Lipski 1989 for other regions of Panama.12 Both English-
and possibly African-language-derived sources for ethnic names may be col-
lapsed into the category of the English-derived Creole language itself, since
any residual African linguistic effects (lexical or otherwise) can only be de-
rived synchronically from the Creole language, though it is possible that re-
gional varieties of Panamanian Spanish may also exhibit influence from West
African languages long ago spoken natively or still heard in vestigial form in
the area. Spanish-derived names or words reflect the obvious fact that Spanish
is productive in the area. My goal in this study is not to determine the African
origins of specific ethnic names, but to understand their usage and distribution,
so this line of inquiry will not be pursued further. (To determine possible Af-
rican correspondences in Afro-American language varieties, consult Turner 1973
and Puckett 1975.)
Several patterns are readily observable from the sample data in Table 1. One,
the individuating functions of ethnic names (see Dorian 1970) is strongly sug-
gested by the three pairs of co-occurring Spanish-derived names (Roberto, Os-
car, and Michon) and the corresponding individuating ethnic names. That is, no
ethnic name occurs twice in the sample data; and, more important, to my knowl-
edge no ethnic name occurs twice among the Afro-Panamanian population of
Bastimentos. In contrast, Spanish-derived official given names are repeated in
many instances among the general population, male or female.
Several of the ethnic names appear Spanish-derived: Chola, Pápa, Chi-Chi.
Chola is a common female nickname among general Latin American Spanish-
speaking populations. However, neither Chola nor Pápa are repeated as ethnic
names among the Bastimentos Creole-speaking population, which again sug-
gests the individuating function of alternative names, as well as their contrastive
cultural function. However, Pápa reflects an Anglophone phonological stress
pattern (cf. Papá in Spanish). Betbet may also be a hypocorism related to the
reduction of the official name Roberto (. Berto . Beto . Bet), with reduplica-
tion at play. Betty may also be a reduced form of Roberto, with the Anglophone
pattern of suffixing 0-i0 as a diminutive.
Table 1 also reveals a binary pattern (or bias), in that males in Bastimentos
often receive ethnic names associated with power while females do not. That is,
animal names (Puma, Tiger) and what are often titles of respect in broader social
contexts (Pápa, Boss) indicate this preference. The data from Belize, discussed
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 591MICHAEL ACETO below, show a similar predilection for animal names, such as Snake, Lion, and Cat, as alternative names for males. A LT E R N AT I V E N A M E S I N T H E A N G L O P H O N E W E S T I N D I E S Systems of alternative names (ethnic or otherwise) are not restricted to any par- ticular culture or region of the world, even if the “naming systems of cultures differ in showing preference for names that are symbolically appropriate” (Bean 1978:86). In this section, I summarize and correlate a number of case studies in the West Indies that offer insights and0or parallels to the pattern of ethnic names in Bastimentos, without suggesting any necessarily causal or direct historical relationship between that speech community and any other region of the Carib- bean or West Africa. Much of the work on alternative naming systems in the West Indies suggests, either explicitly or implicitly, that these naming systems are invoked more often for males than for females in a given society. For example, Manning, writing of Bermuda and Barbados, states: “Women are also known by nicknames, but to a lesser extent than men” (1974:124). This characterization also applies to the data I gathered in Bastimentos. Women may have ethnic names, but men almost al- ways do. This pattern is also confirmed for Creole speakers in Belize (Ken Decker, personal communication, October 2000). Some of the reasons for this dichoto- mous patterning are related to different patterns of bilingualism (and assimila- tion) among males and females vis-à-vis the ambient language of power, and the separate social identities that different languages may index; see Trudgill 1983 for a discussion of covert and overt prestige and how these patterns relate to male0female language use. In Bastimentos, the association between monolin- gualism among males and trends toward bilingualism among females may ac- count for why some females do not display ethnic names, or have only phonetically reduced forms of Spanish-derived given names (e.g., Dorinda . Dorie). That is, bilingualism, at least in Bastimentos, appears to encourage a kind of general assimilation in which local naming practices are commensurately diminished. However, day-names in Jamaica and Suriname (see below), a now defunct but once productive naming system, seem to have been applied equally to males and females. An examination of Manning 1974 and Crowley 1956 raises the question whether the alternative naming systems they describe are most accurately captured by the term “nickname.” It may be more illuminating to consider many of these in- stances as ethnic names instead. In government administrative contexts, in which more standard and politically powerful language forms are often spoken, one may predict that an individual will reference his or her official name; however, in instances in which local vernacular language varieties are spoken (Creole or other- wise), one would not be surprised to find an individual’s ethnic name as the most 592 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)
E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S salient and productive form. As the cases described by Manning strongly suggest, the name in which a person’s death notice is announced might actually be his “real” name (what Manning calls the “nickname”), and his “official” name (which friends and family are mostly unfamiliar with) simply that. Jamaica DeCamp 1967 details the obsolete Jamaican tradition of day-names derived from the Twi-speaking region of modern Ghana (the Gold Coast, during the colonial period). The day-name assigned to a child reflects its sex and the day of the week on which it was born. These distinctions are indicated by a specific name for each day of the week and by a male0female suffix (e.g., Juba for a female born on Monday; the -a suffix indicates ‘female’; Cudjoe is the male counterpart). This day-name system seems clearly to have been a West African cultural retention, though Twi speakers were not the only West African cultural group represented among Jamaica’s slave population. The use of day-names diminished throughout the colonial period, passing through a stage in which they acquired pejorative meanings (see Dillard 1972:123–35 for a discussion of the same day-names among Africans and people of African descent in the USA). By the 20th century, this system of naming had passed into obsolescence. DeCamp implies that the day- name system may have functioned in conjunction with other naming systems. Though it has been asserted that Jamaicans dislike nicknames in general (Beck- with 1929:59) and that this dislike may have contributed to the obsolescence of the day-name system, DeCamp disagrees. He writes unequivocally: “At all social levels, from illiterate cane-cutter to university professor, Jamaicans enjoy giving fanciful names to their friends and to themselves” (143). He provides no other reference to nicknames or the creation of alternative naming systems.13 Burton 1999: provides evidence that slaves in Jamaica participated in multiple social and cultural identities, which were in turn referenced by alternative names: Slaves commonly used two, three or even more names according to context and circumstance: an African name when talking to Africans . . . an ‘official’ European-style name when addressing – or, rather, being addressed by – Massa or Busha, and a further name or nickname, European in form but indigenous [sic] in substance, when speaking to other Creole slaves.14 (1999:38–39) For slaves born in Africa and transported to the Americas, their “African name” may have been more salient as the “ethnic name” described in this article; for those born in the Americas, the so-called nickname may more precisely be con- sidered the ethnic name used for referencing the emerging identity and ethnicity of Afro-Caribbean, Afro-American, or Creole as something related to but distinct from a specific ethnicity and culture in Africa.15 The “European-style name” seems to correspond generally with “white name,” bakáa nĕ, or pseudonym, as used by the Saramaka (see Price & Price 1972 and below). Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 593
MICHAEL ACETO Suriname A system of naming according to the day of the week is also found among the Ndjuka (Kahn 1931:128–129), a Maroon group of Suriname in northern South America. Modern-day Maroons are the descendents of slaves who rebelled or ran away from plantations on the coast to form independent societies in the interior rainforest. The Ndjuka descend from a group that formed during the early part of the 18th century. The Saramaka, another Maroon group in Suriname, formed somewhat earlier. Both groups created their own discrete, mutually unintelligible languages via creolization processes (see Price 1976). According to Kahn, the day-name (to use DeCamp’s term) system also derives from the Twi-speaking peoples of West Africa.16 He states that the Ndjukas have at least two names, “one which everyone may use and another which depends upon the day of the week on which the individual was born” (1931:170).17 Price & Price 1972 discuss names among the Saramaka Maroon group of Suriname, distinguishing three general types of personal names: (i) Gaán nĕ ‘big name’ or ‘true name’, which becomes restricted in use in late adolescence and early adulthood; (ii) pikí nĕ ‘little name’ or ‘nickname’, which is usually exter- nally derived; and (iii) bakáa nĕ ‘Western name’, literally ‘white name’, a name chosen by men who work on the coast of Suriname in a more European-influenced context where Dutch or Sranan (a third English-derived creole of Suriname) are often spoken. In the Saramaka case, name types (ii) and (iii) correspond well to my general definitions of, respectively, nicknames and pseudonyms. It appears that in Saramaka society, any male may select his bakáa nĕ, and that anyone, male or female, may generate and receive several pikí nĕ. Bakáa nĕ seem to correlate closely with the immigrant name changes discussed above; that is, they are al- ternative names that may conceal the ethnic identity of the person referenced. One might also assume, as is often the case with alternative names, that when referencing these bakáa nĕ, Saramaka will speak either Sranan, the lingua franca of Suriname, or possibly Dutch, the colonial language of power also spoken in the capital, Paramaribo. In any case, one would be surprised if bakáa nĕ were used when speaking Saramaccan, the ethnic language of the Saramaka. Among soci- eties that display multiple or alternative names, language choice often invokes the use of an alternative name, ethnic or otherwise. Price & Price (1972:345–348) also discuss the origin of names in Saramaka society and reveal that these names are broken down according to what I have designated as externally and internally derived routes for nicknames. This is not to say that all names in Saramaka society may necessarily be considered nick- names, though a subset are explicitly so labeled by the authors. They provide several insights with parallels to the Bastimentos case: “Almost anyone is free to give a name at almost any time” (349); “Many names given to newborn children have no explicit meaning” (347; see the discussion of euphony in n. 7): and “By the time a person reaches his thirties, one or two names have usually become 594 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)
E T H N I C P E R S O N A L N A M E S A N D M U LT I P L E I D E N T I T I E S
dominant over the others as terms of both reference and address, and these usu-
ally continue to be used as principal everyday names for the rest of his life” (351).
St. Lucia
Crowley 1956 describes some general naming patterns in St. Lucia; what he calls
“nicknames” form just a small part of the discussion. St. Lucia was part of the
Francophone West Indies before its colonial transfer to the British in the 19th
century. Owing to this mixed colonial history, St. Lucia reveals two restructured
language varieties: an earlier, French-derived Creole that seems to be losing num-
bers of speakers to the more recently emerging Anglophone Creole. Crowley
writes that a child (females are not mentioned as recipients of these names; all
examples are of the kind Ti Son ‘little boy’, Gwo Son ‘big boy’) may receive, in
general, two types of names: a no sud or nickname, and a no savan or “bush
name” (1953:90). Later, he describes a no sud as a “pseudonym,” then states that
both a no sud and a no savan can be nicknames or aliases (90). Thus, there appears
to be a rich system of assigning alternative names in St. Lucia, but it would be
difficult on the basis of Crowley 1956 alone to assign it to the taxonomy of names
discussed above.
Despite his lack of rigor in distinguishing between nicknames and pseud-
onyms, Crowley offers some valuable motivations for naming in St. Lucia. He
suggests (90) that the goal of secrecy, with two different motivations, is largely
responsible for maintaining a variety of names for individuals (cf. the role of
secrecy in name changes by Jewish immigrants; see Aceto 1995, Bellman 1984).
One motivation is concealment of identity from government representatives, and
the other is secrecy for the religious purpose of hiding one’s identity from some-
one who intends harm through obeah (sorcerous) activities. Crowley claims that
naming customs in St. Lucia “provide an effective means of passive resistance to
unpopular, or unsympathetic administrative influences, political, religious, and
legal” (92). A similar naming dichotomy related to a bureaucratic or national0
local juxtaposition is revealed by Burton (1999:49): Martinican males in the
Francophone West Indies tend to have an official ‘town-hall name’ (nom de mai-
rie) and an unofficial ‘hill name’ (nom des mornes).
Carriacou
Smith writes: “All Carriacou folk will have at least two names, the Christian or
church name, which is rarely used, and the ‘house name’ by which they are known
in the community” (1962:91). He further states that anyone in the community
may be the source of the house name, and this name may be given at any time
(92). The church name is maintained as a secret name out of fear that knowledge
of it may permit it to be used in conjunction with obeah and cause the bearer of
the name harm. This distinction between sacred and profane names is paralleled
in the geographically proximate case of St. Lucia (St. Lucia and Carriacou share
a similar dual colonial history), and it could also be argued that it represents a
Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 595You can also read
