given names

[Don Killian]

Dear Frederick,

Something just came to mind (a bit belated since you already sent a 
summary) about a language I'm working on, Uduk.. nowadays they're often 
using Christian names, so it's not quite the same thing as earlier (but 
it's not gone either!), but in earlier times Uduk didn't actually even 
keep a single name throughout their life.

It wasn't a "stage of life" name-change, which is more familiar to 
linguists/anthropologists, but something rather a bit more impermanent. 
  Names were supposed to be highly individual and non-recurring (you 
shouldn't ever name someone after someone else, living or dead).  But 
even after a unique birth name, it was also common to get a "nickname" 
by different people depending on how you knew them or how they 
associated you, and these nicknames often ended up superseding the 
original name.  It more focuses on the relationship between the people 
rather than the individual itself.

Thus there are lots of words in Uduk for "name one person calls another 
when they eat meat together"  or "name one person calls another when 
they have hunted together", "name one person calls another if they share 
the same birth name", etc.  In regards to your original question, many 
of these are for men or for women, since they're things that only men or 
only women do together, but perhaps it's interesting to hear about a 
culture which doesn't even really use permanent names at all.

If you're interested in learning more, I suggest the article:

James, Wendy (1978). Ephemeral names: the Uduk case. in: Aspects of 
language in the Sudan, ed. Robin Thelwall. New Univ. of Ulster.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9706227/james_uduk-names1978.pdf is a link to 
the article in case you can't find it.

Best Regards,

Don


On 22/07/12 20:04, Frederick J Newmeyer wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a question posed to me by a non-linguist friend that borders
> on trivia, but is perhaps deeply interesting nonetheless. Does
> anybody know of a culture where no distinction is made between male
> given names and female given names? That is, cultures where if
> somebody says to you something like "I'd like you to meet Gkz'itfo
> some day," you have no cues as to whether Gkz'itfo is a man or a
> woman. English and some other European languages have SOME names like
> that (Lee, Kim, Sandy, etc.), but I wonder if there are places where
> ALL names are gender-neutral.
>
> Thanks. I'll summarize.
>
> --fritz
>
>
> Frederick J. Newmeyer Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
> Adjunct Professor, U of British Columbia and Simon Fraser U [for my
> postal address, please contact me by e-mail]