"What's in a name?"

[Marilyn Kay Plumlee]

> Any info/resources out there on name signs other
> than in ASL?  Info on naming in spoken languages would be welcome, too.

Two pieces of info that you could look into further:

RE name signs in sign languages:
1) When I was in France in the early 80s taking FSL [i.e. LSF] classes and
interacting with active members of the Deaf community there, they used to
make comparisions with aspects of ASL and Amer. Deaf culture that they
were familiar with. One thing they noted was that "Americans always use
initials on their name signs--they're so tied to English!" By comparison,
they noted that French name signs tend be based on a physical feature of
the person (often something unusual and "uncomplimentary", and quite often
based on a physical feature that person had when they were a child in the
residential school--i.e. freckles, a long braid, plump face, "runny nose",
etc.)
        I also had the same comment from Polish Deaf I knew later in L.A.
        While there are of course non-initialized name signs in the
U.S., it would be interesting to give consideration to why the French
Deaf (these were International Visual Theatre members and the early
teachers of LSF who had a significant amount of contact with American Deaf
visitors, researchers, etc.) were struck by the relative high
proportion of initialized name signs in the U.S. Also it would be
interesting to see what the naming tendencies are among the younger generation
of Deaf people in other countries yet.

RE spoken language names:
2) Just this morning (i.e. July 1, 1998) on NPR's Morning Edition there
was a wonderful feature piece by a woman talking about naming traditions
in the African-American community. She went through all the historical
eras and gave illustrations of how the names of an era represent identity
issues. You can get both audio and written transcripts from NPR for a fee.
(e-mail me back if you need further info. on how to do that-I think it's
$12 for a written transcript and $23 or so for both the audio and written
versions.)

Best regards,

Marilyn Plumlee
Dept. of Linguistics
University of Hawai`i
Honolulu, Hawai`i 96822
plumlee at hawaii.edu
TEL/FAX: 808-735-9186