question about names

[dryer at BUFFALO.EDU]

I am sending this on behalf of a student of mine:

I have a question regarding names. I am working on Mehek, a Sepik language 
spoken in Papua New Guinea. I discovered a phenomenon where each person's 
name has two counterpart names, one which is used when that person is being 
reprimanded and one which is used when the person has done something good 
or has returned from a journey. The "bad" name is morphologically related 
to the regular name, while the "good" name has a (mostly) unrelated form. 
These alternate names correspond to the name itself; everyone with a given 
name will have the same "good" and "bad" name. In addition to the good and 
bad names, every name also has a unique whistle call and song.  The whistle 
call is used to call people out of visual range and the song is used as a 
form of greeting or praise. I would like to know if anyone else has noted 
anything similar to this.

Adam Hatfield
Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo
ah63 at buffalo.edu