Names Fashioned by Gender

Stitched Perceptions

Thenjiwe Meyiwa, Madoda Cekiso

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032628196
• eBook ISBN: 9781003812838
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Names are very powerful and significant, especially in the African context. Across societies, there is a universal, albeit taken-for-granted fact that all human beings have names. Names Fashioned by Gender is a collection of essays on onomastics—a linguistics field of study focusing on the origin, form, history and use of proper names. The study of naming potentially provides significant evidence about the role of gender in the assimilation and/or enculturation processes as personal names evoke insight into the construction of gender and personhood in African societies.

The book takes intellectual course from the idea that how names are viewed and used is heavily context-dependent and gendered. It demonstrates that personal names are narratives derived from different contexts within various cultures and circumstances subsequently imposing different identities on name bearers. Through persuasive essays, this book elucidates that naming is an activity that needs to be conducted cautiously because names tend to determine the destiny and character of an individual.

Print editions not for sale in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contributors
• Introduction: Towards Developing A Feminist Onomastics Scholarship
• Chapter 1: Assessing the Origin and Perceptions of Gendered Yoruba Names
• Chapter 2: Gendered Personal Names In Yoruba and Chichewa
• Chapter 3: Setswana Naming System: A Gendered Outlook
• Chapter 4: Gender Stereotypes Embedded in the Labels of Female Subjects in a Crosssection of Zimbabwean Music
• Chapter 5: Child-Naming and Gender Transformation in Gutu, Zimbabwe
• Chapter 6: Beyond The Name: Manianga Tribe's Ways of Naming
• Chapter 7: Subculture Socio-Cultural Nicknaming Phenomena Embedded in Izindlavini of Amampondo of the Eastern Cape
• Chapter 8: Re-Considering the Idiom ‘If God Is Male, Then the Male Is God’ in Light of Selected Shona Personal Names Among Reformed Church in Zimbabwe Christians in Chivi, Zimbabwe
• Chapter 9: Gender in the Personal Naming Practices of the Shona in Zimbabwe: A Socioonomastic Study
• Chapter 10: Xhosa Female Initiates' (Intonjane) Perceptions of Meanings and Values Attached to Their New Names
• Chapter 11: ‘Get This Straight, that is (Not) My Name’, Retorts a Xhosa Speaking Woman
• Chapter 12: ‘Hold the Roof Woman’: Exploring How the Naming Practices Among Xhosaspeaking People Contribute to the High Rate of Divorce of African Couples in South Africa
• Chapter 13: A Feminist Approach to the Naming and Circumstances of Prominent Women in the Bible in Relation to the Naming of Prominent Zulu Women
• Chapter 14: An Examination of Names and Gender in Ngugi's Devil on the Cross and I Will Marry When I Want
• Chapter 15: Gender Shift in the Use of the Formative–No–In Zulu Given Names
• Chapter 16: Fluid Identities: Naming and Recognition in Noviolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah
• Chapter 17: Queer(ing) Onomastics: Names and the Construction of Nonnormative Genders and Sexualities in Selected Short Stories in Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction
• Chapter 18: A Feminist Interrogation of Owé Gendered Naming Practices
• Chapter 19: The Gendered Nature of Naming Children Among the Shona in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 20: Names of Council Beer Halls and Shebeens in Bulawayo: A Feminist Analysis
• Chapter 21: Anti-Women Nomenclature: A Selection of Zimbabwean Ergonyms in Family Businesses
• Chapter 22: Interrogating the Female Politicians Selected Motherhood and Wifehood Label in the Zimbabwean Print Media: The Case of the Financial Gazette 2002
• Chapter 23: Rethinking the Framing of Women in the Nation Through ‘Self-Naming’ and ‘Self-Definition’ of Female Nationalists in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 24: Naming Female Characters to Achieve a Colonial Agenda (‘De-Womanisation’ of African Womanhood): The Case of Zvarevashe's Novel Kurauone
• Index