Ethnic Personal Names

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 $9.50 577
MICHAEL 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) 579
MICHAEL 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-
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
MICHAEL 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
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
MICHAEL 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-
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
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
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-
MICHAEL 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-
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
MICHAEL 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.
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
MICHAEL 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

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).

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
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
MICHAEL ACETO
kind of alternative name patterning – with, of course, different social motivations

for its maintenance than found in the case of Bastimentos.
Regarding the maintenance of secrecy surrounding sacred names, Herskovits
states:
Names are given at stated periods in an individual’s life, and, as among all folk
where magic is important, the identification of a ‘real’ name with the person-
ality of its bearer is held to be so complete that this ‘real’ name, usually the one
given him at birth by a particular relative, must be kept secret lest it come into
the hands of someone who might use it in working evil magic against him.
(1941:190)
Cultural groups beyond the Americas also maintain discrete names based on a
sacred0profane dichotomy motivated by secrecy. Clodd (1920:65) describes the
secrecy associated with Sinhalese “rice names” as a safeguard against sorcery.
Harrison 1990 describes the secrecy surrounding names and the power inherent
in them that must be guarded in Papua New Guinea.18
Barbados and Bermuda
Manning 1974 offers an insightful anecdote about trying in vain to locate an
individual in Barbados by using his “official” name. Eventually, a woman real-
izes for whom Manning is searching and provides the man’s “nickname.” Bearing
this new information, Manning retraces his steps using the new name as refer-
ence. He realizes that many of the locals he spoke to earlier indeed knew the
individual in question, but only by what Manning calls a “nickname” (in my
terms, an ethnic name).19 In Bastimentos, the Panamanian police rarely visit the
island except to question an individual (almost always a male) regarding a crime
or make an arrest. Often the police, nearly always Hispanophones and not of West
Indian descent, reference only the individual’s “official” Spanish-derived name,
perhaps out of ignorance or as an act of power. On more than one occasion, there
was general confusion about the specific identity of the person the police were
looking for until the individual’s ethnic name could be established by the com-
munity. I do not know how much of the “confusion” was actually resistance in the
form of feigning ignorance in order to hinder the police (see Scott 1985:33–34 for
feigned ignorance as a strategy of resistance).
Manning’s article on names in Bermuda and Barbados offers other parallels to
the Bastimentos case. For example, most of the nicknames for people in both
locations are externally derived, having no phonetic or semantic relationship to
the recipient’s original “official” name. Manning states that many of these names
“are basically nonsensical and have no particular lexical content and a more-or-
less arbitrary relationship to their bearer” (124). We might argue that all names
are arbitrary in that there is no natural, universal, or inherent semantic connection
between a word (a sequence of sounds or gestures) and its referents, even if the
motives and pattern for naming are transparent and can be easily explained (cf. n. 7
for discussion of non-arbitrary names raised by Algeo 1973). In Bastimentos, this

pattern is also revealed by ethnic names such as Yogo and Yaya. Manning adds,
“Nicknames are normally acquired in youth . . . they tend to ‘stick’ to a person for
life. Occasionally, a nickname or second nickname is gained in adulthood” (124–
125). In Bermuda, “nicknames” are so closely associated with an individual’s
identity that they are listed in the telephone directory (124). In Barbados, “nick-
names” are even attached to funeral notices because these are the names by which
an individual was best known, and few people know a person’s original “official”
name. One could make the case that these so-called nicknames distinguish these
individuals as persons of African descent who speak their own language variety,
which is symbolic of that specific culture. In other words, these alternative names,
or “nicknames,” may appropriately be considered ethnic names.
The Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia

The largest part of Turner 1973 is a catalog of personal names and their possible
African language etyma among the Gullahs of the Sea Islands of Georgia and
South Carolina. Turner describes the naming system of these English-derived
creole speakers:
Most of the Gullah people use two kinds of given names. One is English, and
they call it their real name or true name and use it at school, in their correspon-
dence, and in their dealings with strangers. The other is the nickname, known
also as the pet name or basket name. In their homes and among their friends
and acquaintances they use the nickname almost exclusively. In fact, so gen-
eral is its use that many of the Gullahs have difficulty in recalling their English
given-name. The nickname is nearly always a word of African origin. When
not African it is likely to be an English word. (1973:40)
This excerpt captures closely (aside from the African origin of the Gullah names)
the pattern of naming found on Bastimentos as well. Turner continues, “The
meanings of many of their names are not known . . . the sound of a word may be
the sole reason for its being selected” (41– 42). We might again question whether
any name that recipients have trouble recalling can accurately be called a “true”
or “real” name, even if the speech community’s attitudes toward these specific
cultural components are reflected by the use of these terms.20 Clearly, what Gul-
lah speakers label as a “true” or “real” name is an “official” name, one found on
documents and used for writing and literacy. It is more illuminating to consider
the name used most often in reference and address (the “basket” or “pet” name)
as the “real” name – or, more precisely, the ethnic name.
Baird & Twining confirm that this system of alternative naming is still pro-
ductive to some extent on the Sea Islands, though it seems in danger of passing
into obsolescence: “The youngest of the bearers of the names are around twenty
years old, but these are conspicuously few. The majority of the names are of
persons thirty-five years of age or older” (1994:27). Baird & Twining insist that
MICHAEL ACETO
basket names are given soon after birth, but that an additional (third) name may
be acquired during adolescence or even later (23). This “nickname” may be de-
rived from some “physical or temperamental characteristic or some incident in
which the person has been involved. In any case, for Sea Islanders the nickname,
basket name, or pet name by which an individual is known within the community
is the owner’s operative personal name” (23). In many instances, Baird & Twin-
ing label the result of this naming process “a basket name or nickname” (e.g., 37).
Thus, it is difficult to understand if the naming processes involved vary between
giving a basket name, reportedly in the cradle, and giving a nickname at any point
during childhood or even later. Nonetheless, the external routes by which basket
names may be derived are no different than those for nicknames in general (28).
Belize
Ken Decker (personal communication, October 2000) has generously shared some
of his preliminary data on names among Creole speakers in Belize. Belize is a
multilingual area in which Creole English, English, Amerindian languages (e.g.,
Mayan, Carib), and Spanish are spoken in different combinations by different
segments of the population; the official language is English. The Creole English
of Belize descends historically from contact between African slaves and Anglo-
phone European settlers who migrated from Bluefields in Nicaragua in the 18th
century. In a pattern similar to that found among residents of Bastimentos, more
recent Anglophone immigrants from the Western Caribbean have contributed to
the form of Creole spoken today. Belizean Creole speakers have a rich system of
ethnic names, though the specific language dynamic is different from the situa-
tion in Panama, where the official language is Spanish. Nonetheless, regarding
their form, the nicknames (as Decker calls them) could just as well be from Bas-
timentos: Waga, Bo Rat, Ratti, Snake, Lion, Mose, Chuuku, Cat, Cacky, Cobo.
Decker explains that this dual pattern of naming is mostly confined to males
(which all his data reflect). When a female has another name, it is usually an
internally derived contraction of her original name, as is often the case in Basti-
mentos. Decker adds that it is uncommon for a Creole speaker to have a Spanish-
derived alternative name of any kind.
A LT E R N AT I V E N A M E S I N W E S T A F R I C A
Many of the studies just discussed assign the provenience of a specific regional
and cultural naming system found among peoples of African descent in the Amer-
icas vaguely to West Africa, or simply to Africa. Little research has succeeded in
assigning a geographically or ethnically defined naming practice in the Americas
to a specific cultural or linguistic group in West Africa (see DeCamp 1967 and
Kahn 1931 for two important exceptions). One primary reason for this uncer-
tainty lies in the incomplete records of the importation of slaves from places in
West Africa. It is often difficult to know exactly where an African slave in the
Americas originated. What is known, if anything at all, is where individuals were
purchased on the western coast of Africa. Turner 1973 is the most diligent and
rigorous in assigning etyma to specific Gullah names from specific West African
languages. However, even he is unable to assign the system of basket names used
among Gullah speakers to a specific West African origin. We will not be any more
successful here regarding the Creole speech community of Bastimentos. Mintz &
Price write that “one must maintain a skeptical attitude toward claims that many
contemporary social or cultural forms represent direct continuities from the Af-
rican homelands” (1992:52).
The discussion of “continuities,” “retentions,” or “survivals” from Africa
often obscures the fact that there is rarely a one-to-one correspondence be-
tween an African source and a similar feature’s subsequent emergence in the
Americas. Convergence may be one of several factors making such a specific
historical designation elusive. That is, if several but not necessarily all contrib-
uting African cultural components manifested generally similar naming prac-
tices, then these typological similarities would increase the chances that this
feature would ultimately be maintained (and, of course, modified) in any sub-
sequent system that emerged in the Americas; but one still would not be able to
assign that practice to a single, specific, original contributing group. Conver-
gence is a principle invoked in creole studies to understand how specific lin-
guistic or cultural features, even marked (or uncommon) features, may be
maintained in an emerging or creolizing language or culture. In short, the larger
the number of composite cultures forming a matrix that share a given feature in
a specific location, the greater the chances that this feature will be maintained
or exhibited, in some similar but altered form, in the subsequent emerging cul-
ture (see Mufwene 1993 for references to convergence within the context of
linguistic and cultural creolization). I tend to agree with Mintz & Price (1992:52–
60) that modification, adaptability, and change characterize any cultural group
integrating elements from composite sources (African or otherwise), in con-
trast to an approach that views culture as frozen in time when transported from
one geographical and cultural space to another. They write, “Direct formal con-
tinuities from Africa are more the exception than the rule in any African-
American culture” (60).
This article is in no way concerned with proving or disproving African con-
tributions to ethnic names in Bastimentos (it is unclear if it could even be done, in
either case, in a rigorous and precise way), or in the various systems of alternative
names found in other Afro-Caribbean or Afro-American speech communities
discussed here. Since there is irrefutable historical and contemporary linguistic
data indicating African influence in the Americas, one would not be surprised to
find cultural retentions (albeit modified) from West Africa, such as the system of
day-names described by DeCamp 1967 (see Cabrera 1970 for one example of
West African religious survivals). However, that level of specificity – tracing the
roots of a single cultural component of a specific ethnic group in the Americas to
precise origins in West Africa – is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the
MICHAEL ACETO
rule. I present some cross-cultural patterns in naming more as a way to under-

stand the widespread human tendency to reference different social identities with
alternative names than as an effort to locate the origins of ethnic names in Bas-
timentos, or in any other individual case (see n. 21 and below).
The following studies discuss alternative names among peoples from the west
coast of Africa. Though these are not “ethnic names” in the sense intended for the
Afro-Panamanians of Bastimentos, they suggest a general cultural propensity
toward multiple names. Herskovits believed that flexibility of names is an Afri-
canism in general: “Among Africans, a person’s name may in so many instances
change with time, a new designation being assumed on the occasion of some
striking occurrence in his life, or when he goes through one of the rites marking
a new stage in his development” (1941:190). (Compare this with the external
routes by which nicknames may be derived.)
Fortes 1955 examines naming practices among the Tallensi (the language has
the same name and is part of the Gur language group) of Ghana. He reports, “A
person can have, and very commonly does have two given names” (1955:339).
One name is his “open or everyday name,” and the other is “his spirit-guardian
name” (339). Fortes claims, “Naming customs of the kind I have described are
found among all the tribes and peoples of Africa” (349).
The Yoruba of Nigeria (and, to a lesser extent, in Benin and Togo) may have as
many as five personal names: a birth name, given about a week after birth; a
Christian or Muslim name from the Bible or Qur’an; a name that recipients give
themselves or that is given to them as a result of some attribute; a praise name, a
special name usually given by a child’s grandparents; and initials, usually the first
letters of two or three of the previous names (Oyetade 1995:521). Johnson writes:
“The use of the attributive name is so common that many children are better
known by it than by their real names. Some do not even know their own real
names when the attributive is popular” (1921:85) (cf. other cases discussed above
in which recipients often could not remember their “real” names).
The Ovimbundu of Angola have a fluid system of personal names. Hambly
reports, “Children may change their own names at the age of about sixteen years,
and actually do so if their names are distasteful to them” (1934:188). Childs is
more unequivocal about the Ovimbundu: “In adolescence young people discard
the names with which they were born and name themselves” (1969:87).
Herskovits discusses at length the Dahomey people of what would be called
Togo today. He writes: “Every exploit in a man’s life is signalized by the choice
of a new name for himself, and a man’s position in a community is enhanced by
his resourcefulness in originating for himself ingenious names” (1967:151). Fur-
thermore, a child in Dahomean society can receive up to three names at birth, and
additional names can be added in early adulthood (263–266).
Alternative names in general (even ethnic names specifically) are not limited
to the Caribbean or the larger Atlantic region. Similar naming systems have been
documented in many societies in disparate regions of the world.21 In fact, it may
be that alternative names are more the norm in many cultures than is usually
realized.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Why would the residents of Bastimentos advertise so prominently their lack of

Hispanophone roots by abandoning Spanish-derived given names in local con-
texts? The short answer is because ethnic names with their Creole-derived origins
more closely index who they are in terms of language and cultural identity. That
is, the general Panamanian social identity largely constructed in Spanish is less
salient and relevant than the Creole component within the narrow Anglophone
cultural sphere in which most residents of Bastimentos live, even approximately
150 years after this community was settled. Locally, the Creole-constructed iden-
tity is the most conspicuous, and thus it demands Creole-derived names and usage
as one component of ethnic identity.
What factors might account for how speakers focus on the social or ethnic
groups with which they wish to identify? That is, what constraints might impinge
on individual acts of social, ethnic, and linguistic identity, and what effect might
these acts have on language choice, and thus on ethnic name usage? Le Page &
Tabouret-Keller write:
We can only behave according to the behavioral patterns of groups we find

it desirable to identify with to the extent that: (i) we can identify the groups;
(ii) we have both adequate access to the groups and ability to analyse their
behavioural patterns; (iii) the motivation to join the groups is sufficiently pow-
erful, and is either reinforced or reversed by feedback from the groups; (iv) we
have the ability to modify our behaviour. (1985:182)
In Bastimentos, strangers are not given Creole-derived ethnic names for use in
reference and address at least until they identify the local speech community as
Anglophone Creole speakers, achieve some proficiency in Guari-Guari (or some
variety of English approximate to the Creole), and gain some familiarity or inti-
macy with local social groups in which they will possess these names for use in
local contexts. In other words, not only do the four criteria described by Le Page
& Tabouret-Keller affect language choice and thus ethnic name usage, among
residents of Bastimentos; in addition, fieldworkers and outsiders in general are
limited in their ability to gather data or witness ethnic name usage until they
fulfill those criteria. This characterization certainly applied to me while I was
conducting my own research. Of course, issues related to solidarity and power
also function in Bastimentos society (see Brown & Gilman 1972). For example,
outsiders often must participate in some act of solidarity with locals by speaking
some form of English before ethnic names are divulged, since relatively few
island residents are willing to initiate conversations in Spanish.
MICHAEL ACETO
Price & Price (1972:357–358) suggest that, in Saramaka society specifically

and in the Afro-Americas in general, some types of names are marked to be
avoided in use with strangers or outsiders, and usage of those names may be
circumscribed under the guises of etiquette and good manners. In Bastimentos, it
is never a face-threatening act (Brown & Levinson 1987) simply to reference and
address individuals by their ethnic names – and these names are in no way similar
to “secret names” – as long as speakers fulfill the criteria described by Le Page &
Tabouret-Keller, while being sensitive to issues of respect and politeness that all
members of Bastimentos society manifest towards specific individuals (e.g., ad-
hering to the diminishing custom of addressing elder residents by the titles Mister
or Miss plus their Creole names). However, many formal social functions asso-
ciated with public institutions on the island (e.g., school activities) are held ex-
clusively in Spanish, and so the use of ethnic names is considered less appropriate
in such “official” contexts.
One possible social and economic motivation for the use of ethnic names is
that most residents are more or less locally bound to the island through a combi-
nation of choice and poverty. Opportunities for economic and social mobility are
quite restricted in the Bocas del Toro region, as they are in many areas of Panama.
Local identity and language are most salient or dominant in local contexts be-
cause the Hispanophone component of Panamanian life offers few economic and
social rewards to the residents of Bastimentos. In fact, many of them identify
more strongly with (and have extended families in) other Anglophone West In-
dian communities farther north up the Caribbean coast in Puerto Limon and
Manzanillo, Costa Rica, than with West Indian communities in the national cen-
ters of economic and political power in Panama City or Colon. Consequently, the
ties of nationalism appear less vital than local ethnic identification that connects
families sharing similar histories and cultures across international borders. Fur-
thermore, the rewards of linguistic and social assimilation (and their purported
economic benefits) are far less apparent and accessible in Bastimentos than they
might be in more heavily Spanish-dominant spheres of Panamanian public life.
When economic opportunities are few, the disadvantages of demarcating oneself
ethnically and0or linguistically from the population at large are commensurately
fewer. A natural prediction is that members of economically poorer social classes
not only have different ways of speaking (or social class dialects), as has been
clearly demonstrated throughout the sociolinguistics literature of the past 35 years,
but also that alternative naming systems, of which ethnic names constitute one
example, may emerge in these same communities.
Residents of Ol’ Bank reference and address themselves as Anglophone West
Indians through Creole language usage and the use of ethnic names because they
are West Indians, and because there are no negative repercussions, social or
economic, for doing so. In fact, in such an economically depressed area, there are
only positive repercussions correlated with maintaining ethnic identity. On the
other hand, Spanish (and, to some degree, varieties of American English) is viewed
as a key to social and economic advancement in Panama. Thus, if residents of

Bastimentos were to relocate to more intensively Hispanophone-dominated areas,
we might expect this Creole language dominance (as well as the frequency and
regularity of ethnic name usage) to shift in favor of the wider, Spanish-derived
component of Panamanian identity (recall the immigrant naming processes dis-
cussed above and their relation to goals of assimilation). Though I have not em-
pirically verified this prospective pattern, many residents of the island have
confirmed it anecdotally when discussing the erosion of Guari-Guari usage among
younger Anglophone speakers throughout Bocas del Toro.
The contrast between official and ethnic names offers some insight into the
linguistic, cultural, and historical dichotomies that the Bastimentos community
negotiates daily, between largely Spanish-speaking Panama and the local com-
munity as part of the larger Anglophone Creole-speaking area of the Caribbean.
Even the name of the island of Bastimentos exhibits this binary patterning: Bas-
timentos is its official Spanish name, but residents often refer it among them-
selves as Ol’ Bank.22 The vitality of alternative names in Bastimentos and in other
Anglophone Creole-speaking areas of the Caribbean may be viewed as cultural
maintenance or as a kind of resistance to the dominant culture. For more than a
century, Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent in Bastimentos have sought to
keep alive their West Indian culture by maintaining Creole as the first language of
the community, along with the ethnic naming system. However, residents still
recognize the bureaucratic usefulness of utilizing Spanish names on official Pan-
amanian government forms.23
Most likely, the documented cases of alternative naming systems discussed
above are just the beginning of establishing this phenomenon of attaching discrete
names to the multiple identities (ethnic or otherwise) that humans reference every
day. Studies among non-Afro-Americans do not seem wholly different from the
Afro-American or African cases (see n. 21). What appear as considerable differ-
ences in specific details may often obscure basic human cultural patterns. Specific
cultural groups often create and maintain separate names for a range of social iden-
tities or to mark crucial events in their lives. My thesis is not that the residents of
Bastimentos are somehow unique in their use of ethnic names. More important is
the fact that this community reveals a naming system that has been developed, used,
and maintained to signify minority ethnic and linguistic identities. Furthermore,
it hardly seems controversial to hypothesize that, in many societies where several
or many ethnicities function under the banner of a single national identity, a spe-
cific cultural group is likely to display ethnic or alternative names that contrast ei-
ther etymologically or phonologically with those drawn from the ambient language
of power. For example, many immigrants in the USA have Anglicized their names
or adopted Anglophone names for exclusive use among English speakers, while
maintaining original or ethnic names for ingroup usage.
I have proposed that the cultural patterns displayed in the use and maintenance
of ethnic names correlate with linguistic behavior associated with multilingual-
MICHAEL ACETO
ism and diglossia in general. All linguistic tokens are socially marked and are
“used by an individual because they are felt to have social as well as semantic
meaning in terms of the way in which each individual wishes to project his0her
own universe and invite others to share it” (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller 1985:247).
Ethnic names are one component of the linguistic and cultural universe of Creole
speakers in Bastimentos.
NOTES
* A version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America
and the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in Washington, DC, January 2001. I am grateful to
Jeffrey Williams, Ken Decker, Jane Hill, Nancy Dorian, and an anonymous reviewer for their com-
ments and suggestions. Any errors or shortcomings are, of course, mine alone.
1
There are also several speech communities of Amerindian languages such as Kuna and Guaymi,
the Chinese languages Hakka and Cantonese, and Arabic, as well as some citizens who are familiar
with varieties of American English.
2
Creole English emerged on San Andrés and Providencia in the 17th and 18th centuries as a result
of British colonial activities in the western Caribbean, and, though the islands are currently controlled
politically by Colombia, Anglophone Creole varieties are still spoken there today.
3
This unwillingness or inability to recognize Creole as the native language of the island contrib-
utes greatly to the difficulties many students experience at school. Even when Spanish language
lessons are presented within the educational system, they are taught from a native language perspec-
tive and not as a second language.
4
Coincidentally, “signum” or “byname” is also found in Pulgram (1954:11) as roughly synony-
mous with the term “ethnic name” in this article. Dorian informs me (personal communication,
September 2001) that she used the term “by-name” in her article because that was the label the locals
in Scotland used in English to designate this category of alternative names.
5
In this article, “official” indicates a legal name that appears on government-issued documents
such as a birth certificate, high school diploma, passport, or marriage license.
6
The folk etymology often associated with the word nickname has likely contributed to its per-
ception as a reduced variant of a phonetically longer form via an internally derived route (e.g. Jeff ,
Jeffrey). The word nickname was originally ekename or ick-name. The archaic word eke “also” is
related to the Old English verb ecan ‘to enlarge, to add to, to increase’, and only survives today, to my
knowledge, in the expression ‘to eke out (e.g. a living)’ and in the compounded but altered form
nickname under discussion here. Etymologically an “ekename” was an additional name, or by-name
(Pulgram 1954:13), and not simply a reduced version of an original given name. When the morpheme
eke (a Germanic form), was combined with name (a Romance word) in the Middle English period
(approximately 11th to late 15th centuries), and preceded by the indefinite article, the morpheme
boundary was subsequently reanalyzed by speakers to derive a nickname from an ekename. The
prosthetic 0n-0 reanalyzed as the onset of the first syllable of nickname has allowed English speakers
to assume (from both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective) that the first morpheme is derived
from the word nick ‘to cut or notch’. This association has often led English speakers to assume that a
nickname is a contraction of a longer name. Though this reduced name pattern is certainly a subset of
the entire phenomenon of nicknames, this type of nickname perhaps represents the least interesting or
most transparent case. In most other instances, a nickname is phonetically unrelated to an individual’s
given or official name and is derived via externally motivated routes discussed above. This misun-
derstanding of the etymology of nickname led Kohl & Hinton (1972:126) to assume that the nick- in
nickname was a cut, nick, or attack on a recipient’s character.
7
Algeo (1973:57) labels as “nonarbitrary” what I have described as externally derived nicknames.
He writes, “The usual function of the nickname is to suggest some characteristic of the person named,
that is, to be nonarbitrary.” Clearly this assertion is only part of the phenomenon of nicknames, as the
above discussion reveals. The only possible explanation for Algeo’s arbitrary0nonarbitrary distinc-
tion is that the motivations for many externally derived nicknames are often transparent. For example,
if an obese person is named “Fats” (or “Slim,” for that matter), then to Algeo that reflects a nonarbi-

trary nickname. However, this type of nickname is no less arbitrary than any internally derived nick-
name. Algeo (57) cites another example of nonarbitrary names in the case of day-names in Jamaica
(also discussed above). The only insight I can discern in this designation of some (nick)names as
nonarbitrary (or arbitrary) is that there is a transparent motivation or explanation for the derivation,
etymology, or history of the name in question. However, if we break the creation of nicknames into the
dichotomous pattern of internally and externally derived nicknames, the motivation for the creation
of nearly all nicknames becomes transparent, and, I suppose, nonarbitrary from Algeo’s perspective.
There may be some small subset of (nick)names that may appear arbitrary, but they only seem so
because the motivation for the naming act is more opaque than other instances of naming, or perhaps
because a specific name is based on euphony instead (e.g., the ethnic names Yaya and Yogo for
Bastimentos). An arbitrary name may be considered one where the name is neither internally nor
externally derived but only based on euphony, or what the name-giver subjectively finds pleasing to
the ear. However, one may argue that this euphonious quality is most likely at play in the generation
of all names (nicknames or otherwise), at least as far as the name-giver is concerned. This unmoti-
vated distinction between arbitrary and nonarbitrary names will not be pursued further.
8
Bean continues, “What we call social dialect, for example, is an indexical sign of a social
identity of the speaker” (1978:4).
9
For a more complete discussion of name changes among Black Muslims, consult Lincoln 1961.
10
In contrast, Spanish-language usage tends to invoke the usage of “official” Hispanophone first
names.
11
In 1994, I was granted permission to attend and record what is locally called a Pocomia or
Jump-Up ceremony (also known as Pocomania or Cumina in other parts of the Anglophone Carib-
bean; see Simpson 1978), in which Anglophone language varieties, Creole and otherwise, were the
only languages spoken.
12
In Lipski 1989, the Afro-Panamanians in question are not the ancestors of Anglophone West
Indians but the descendents of Spanish0Panamanian colonial slaves; see Cabrera 1970 for another
case in Cuba.
13
The practice of assigning names according to the day on which a child is born is not limited to
Twi-speaking cultures. The Igbo of Nigeria often name children twice. One name specifies the day on
which the child is born, and the other name “is suggested by the display of some characteristic trait,
or some resemblance, fancied or otherwise, to a deceased member of the family” (Basden 1966a:60).
Basden writes of the Igbo, “Both boys and girls are given two or more names” (1966b:174).
14
It seems “indigenous” means “African” here rather than referring to the original Amerindian
population of the West Indies.
15
The same confusion in the literature about what constitutes a “nickname” applies to Burton
1999.
16
Twi-derived day-names similar to those found in Jamaica are also found in Ndjuka society, e.g.
Adjoba (cf. Juba in Jamaica) for a female born on Monday and Kodjo for a male born on the same day
(171).
17
Kahn also refers to a system of secret names among the Ndjuka, which “is also prevalent among
the Surinam Carib Indians” (170). Whether this secret naming custom was borrowed by the Ndjuka
from local Amerindians or whether the Ndjuka influenced the Carib group of the area is unknown.
18
I am grateful to Jeffrey Williams for this reference. Kaganoff writes, “Jews also used both
religious and secular names, first names as well as surnames. A Jew sometimes had one name in the
Jewish community and another for civic and business purposes” (1977:18–19). This pattern of ethnic
names in historic Jewish communities may actually be more salient to in-group usage (see Brown &
Levinson 1987:107–12) than a sacred0profane distinction.
19
Jane H. Hill reports a similar instance in trying to locate Tohono O’odham Indians in Arizona by
their Spanish-derived “official” baptismal names (personal communication, Sept 2001).
20
Speakers in Bastimentos sometimes call their English Creole “di bad inglish,” and while this
local attitude cannot be linguistically justified or validated, it offers some insight into the lack of
prestige that Guari-Guari has in Panama and in the larger Anglophone-speaking world.
21
Dorian 1970 examines name usage in a largely bilingual English0Gaelic community in Scot-
land in which the use of Gaelic correlates with ethnicity. Dorian writes, “The high incidence of
identical names among Gaelic speakers in East Sutherland leads to the use of ‘by-names’ almost to the
exclusion of official names” (303). Goodenough 1965 describes how it is common in the Lakalai
community of Oceania for children to receive more than one name “for the place, time of year,

MICHAEL ACETO
weekday, or other event or circumstance associated with their birth” (269). Collier & Bricker 1970
describe the use of “nicknames” in Zinacantan, one of several Tzotzil-speaking groups in San Cris-
tóbal las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. Each Zinacanteco receives three names: a Spanish-derived first
name, a Spanish-derived surname, and “a so-called Indian surname” (290). Nonetheless, the Zina-
cantecos have difficulty differentiating individuals on the basis of these first name and surname
combinations (291). Consequently, a system of so-called nicknames has developed, which is used for
reference “but never for direct address” (291) in order to reduce the ambiguity associated with the
three sources of names noted. These “nicknames” are so productive that they often replace the Indian
surname and subsequently become associated with family tree structures or genealogies. (It should be
noted that Collier & Bricker call a “nickname” any subsequent name that does not fit the three
categories of naming mentioned above.) Bean 1978 describes a complex system of address in a
Kannada community in Bangalore, India. Some of the Kannada have nicknames, and, as is common
with the true nicknames discussed above, these names often refer to an attribute or physical charac-
teristic of the individual, usually an uncomplimentary one (88, 93, 97), though there are what she calls
“neutral or complimentary nicknames” (93) as well. Kannada nicknames are typically acquired dur-
ing childhood, which is a defining characteristic discussed in the typology above, but they can be used
to address and reference younger adults as well (106).
22
I have been told that other Creole-speaking communities in Panama exhibit this same cultural
and linguistic pattern, but I have not yet confirmed it empirically.
23
Alternative names are not without pragmatic considerations. Many members of the Nation of
Islam often retain their earlier names for official administrative purposes such as voting, bank ac-
counts, or passports, in order to obtain a range of public services, unless a legal name change has been
obtained (Lincoln 1961). Malcolm X assumed the surname Shabazz so that he might travel abroad
without having to reference his previous surname, Little.
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(Received 11 June 2001; accepted 1 February 2002)

Ethnic Personal Names

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Language in Society 31, 577–608.

Printed in the United States of America

Ethnic personal names and multiple identities in Anglophone

This study investigates the generation and maintenance of multiple personal

quickly outnumbered the descendents of older slave and Creole-speaking com-

Map 1: The Province of Bocas del Toro

In Bastimentos, Afro-Panamanians mostly speak Creole English as a first lan-

ish is the only medium of instruction.3 Bastimentos Creole is purely an oral

Pseudonyms, assumed names, aliases and name changes

TABLE 1. Sample of ethnic names

1. Anna Mae Nidia

in Panama as they move between Anglophone and Hispanophone worlds. Lo-

Table 1 is a representative sample that illustrates this pattern of ethnic names

592 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)

Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 593

kind of alternative name patterning – with, of course, different social motivations

for discussion of non-arbitrary names raised by Algeo 1973). In Bastimentos, this

The Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia

rule. I present some cross-cultural patterns in naming more as a way to under-

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Why would the residents of Bastimentos advertise so prominently their lack of

We can only behave according to the behavioral patterns of groups we find

Price & Price (1972:357–358) suggest that, in Saramaka society specifically

as a key to social and economic advancement in Panama. Thus, if residents of

604 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)

Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 605

606 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)

Language in Society 31:4 (2002) 607

608 Language in Society 31:4 (2002)

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