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Ethnic personal names and multiple identities in AnglophoneCaribbean speech communities in Latin America

M I C H A E L A C E T O

Department of EnglishEast Carolina University

Greenville, North Carolina [email protected]

A B S T R A C T

This study investigates the generation and maintenance of multiple personalnames in an Anglophone Creole-speaking community of Panama. Nearlyevery Afro-Panamanian resident of the island of Bastimentos has two givennames, one Spanish-derived and the other Creole-derived. The Creole or“ethnic name” is virtually the exclusive name used locally for reference andaddress. It is argued that these ethnic names are preferred for reference andaddress because they reflexively define who members of this speech com-munity are in terms of culture and ancestry. A typology of nicknames andpseudonyms as well as a brief cross-cultural presentation of multiple oralternative personal names is provided. Ethnic name usage in Bastimentos isdiscussed within an acts of identity framework. (Creole, Panama, ethnicity,nicknames, pseudonyms, identity, onomastics)*

What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other word would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare,Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 43–44

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The familiar Shakespearean assertion about the rose reflects the views of manylinguists who would argue that concepts exist in a framework for language andthought, 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 toa 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 differentlywithin 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

Language in Society31, 577–608. Printed in the United States of AmericaDOI: 10.1017.S0047404502314040

© 2002 Cambridge University Press 0047-4045002 $9.50 577

for others offer windows into how a culture views these individuals, or howthose individuals prefer to be perceived by society at large, according to theidentities, roles, expectations, hierarchies, or values constructed within a socialspace. Goodenough clarifies this culturally driven context of names and nam-ing practices:

Different naming and address customs necessarily select different things aboutthe self for communication and consequent emphasis. In some instances whatis selected for emphasis will reflect and reinforce dominant public values; inothers what is selected will reflect personal concerns . . . In any event, it will besomething about which people are concerned, something about their own iden-tities or the identities of others that theywant to emphasize. What it will bedepends 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 maybring almost any combination of social identities to it.”

This article aims to describe the pattern of personal names and ethnic nameusage in the Anglophone speech community of Bastimentos, Panama, in CentralAmerica.As citizens of the Republic of Panama,Anglophone Creole speakers areforced to negotiate two linguistic and cultural worlds. Panama is a largely Spanish-speaking country in which political, economic, and social centers are controlledin varieties of Spanish (regional or otherwise). However, within the linguisticmosaic of Panama, often unknown even to citizens of the country itself, are morethan a hundred thousand speakers of at least three varieties of English-derivedCreole.1 This study focuses on how the residents of Bastimentos (or Ol’ Bank, asit is known locally; even this dual designation for their community is important inunderstanding the dichotomy of cultural0ethnic identities described below) re-sist, in varying degrees, the ambient cultural pressure to Hispanicize, and howthey are able to maintain alternative cultural models, of which naming systemsconstitute one component.

This resistance is accomplished through a number of strategies that havetheir roots in the history of the community. First, the residents of Bastimentosare descended from English-derived Creole speakers whose ancestors arrivedapproximately one century ago (or more, in some cases) from islands in theAnglophone West Indies. As Afro-Panamanians of Anglophone West Indiandescent, 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 Bastimentosfrom 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, analternative or ethnic naming system (in contrast to the “official” system of givennames in Spanish) has emerged or has been maintained that favors locally de-rived Anglophone Creole names (e.g.,Skip) over official Hispanophone names


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(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 namesin local contexts (or, more precisely, whenever Creole is spoken) is discussedwithin a framework of illuminating patterns in resistance, cultural0 linguisticmaintenance 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 andsolidarity (e.g., Brown & Gilman 1972, Brown & Levinson 1987), the primarylanguage of the Bastimentos speech community demands a related but alternativeperspective. Its English-derived Creole has no contrasting familiar and deferen-tial pronouns of power and solidarity; surnames are not used locally for referenceand address; and formal titles are rare, except perhapsTeacherand the diminish-ing use of an older title system of address that combinesMister or Misswith anindividual’s personal name (not surname), which today sees limited use only inaddressing elderly people. This article is less about systems of address and theirusage as typically discussed in the literature than about the generation and main-tenance of multiple personal names. However, social factors are certainly at playin the use of alternative naming strategies in Bastimentos. My perspective is that,despite the irrelevance of contrastive pronouns and formal systems of address forthis speech community, solidarity is created in this cultural space through theconstruction of ethnicity. Ethnic names comprise one component of ethnicity, aswould language, ancestry, religious customs, food traditions, etc. That is, evenwithout the obvious contrasts of pronominal and titular options, solidarity canstill be implicated as at play in the generation, maintenance, and usage of ethnicnames.

Immigration in the past 150 years is largely responsible for bringing CreoleEnglish to both Panama and Costa Rica. In the post-emancipation period, WestIndians of African descent immigrated to the Caribbean coast of Central Americain search of work on railroad construction projects and banana plantations. It isoften forgotten that the construction of the Panama Canal was carried out largely,not by CentralAmericans or workers from the USA, but by importedAnglophoneWest Indian labor. Many of these West Indians remained behind on either end ofthe Canal, in Panama City on the Pacific and Colon on the Caribbean, and theyrepresent one significant source of Creole-speaking communities in this region ofPanama.

In the Caribbean corner of Bocas del Toro, near the Costa Rican border, wheremy fieldwork was conducted, the historical situation is somewhat different. Afterwork on the Canal was completed, some immigrants moved to this area lookingfor work on fruit plantations. These Anglophone Creole-speaking immigrants

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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 approximately600 persons, and approximately 97 percent are Afro-Panamanians of West Indiandescent. 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 theisland is about one thousand.

In Bastimentos, Afro-Panamanians mostly speak Creole English as a first lan-guage among themselves, and many non-Afro-Panamanians (those of mostlyAm-erindian and0or European ancestry) often speak Guari-Guari as a second or athird language. Yet even the youngest residents of the island are able to hearPanamanian 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 invarieties of Caribbean English (teachers were often recruited from Anglophoneislands 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-

Map 1: The Province of Bocas del Toro



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

In Bastimentos, there are no media representing Creole English forms, whetherradio, television, newspapers, or other local publications. There is electricity inthe town center, and many people have televisions receiving programs broadcastin Spanish. There were no satellite dishes in 1994 and 1995 when I carried out myfieldwork, 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 Creoleand local varieties of Spanish. Some of the island’s older residents, both male andfemale, are monolingual speakers of Creole. There is limited familiarity withmetropolitan English on the part of a few residents who have been educatedoutside the Bocas del Toro region. Most island residents educated outside (e.g., inPanama City, Colon, or the USA) have not returned to live there, even if they visitfrom 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 monthsof fieldwork on the island on two separate occasions in 1994 and 1995. For detailson specific methodological considerations and more historical information on theBastimentos community, consult Aceto 1995.

A L T 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 beenof some interest to researchers, particularly in anthropology. See Collier & Bricker1970, Price & Price 1972 for striking case studies in the Americas; Burton 1999is a compendious review article; and Bean 1978 is perhaps the most detailedindividual study. Unfortunately, in the literature on naming and onomastics, anyalternative name – a name used in addition to a formal or official name – may beambiguously labeled a “nickname,” perhaps because many researchers come fromcultures 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 leasttwo main purposes. First, it is an effort to encourage some rigor and distinction inregard to what appear to be related but different naming terms and strategies. Tothis end, I provide a typology of the termsnicknames, pseudonyms, and what Icall ethnic names, and their application and relationship to naming practicesand 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. Thisobservation has motivated the discussion of nicknames and pseudonyms pre-sented here in order to understand what components of each constitute this new



category, ethnic names (see Dorian 1970 for discussion of “by-names”).4 A briefreview of related work in naming systems is also presented and discussed withina cross-cultural perspective. I claim that alternative names or multiple namingpractices 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, andvarious social groups, but it most often originates from those groups organizedand controlled by children, though a nickname’s use may extend well beyond theboundary of adolescence (see Alford 1988, Morgan et al. 1979). A nicknameoften highlights characteristics or stigmas, physical or social, to which the recip-ient is reluctant to call attention. Morgan et al. add, “Nicknames very often homein on just those characteristics he would prefer to forget” (1979:5). The featurethat seems crucially to define nicknames is that they are most often assigned toindividuals against their will and are usually maintained by “the children’s au-tonomous social world” (Morgan et al. 1979:3). Alford writes, “It appears thatabusive or derogatory nicknames are more common than neutral or positive nick-names” (1988:82). Recipients rarely generate their own nicknames, even if thenickname subsequently “sticks” and the recipient begins self-referring by thenew name. Furthermore, nicknames seem to be used more often for referencethan for address (Alford 1988:82). They often focus on external factors (externalto 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 toby their recipients. “Children are aware of the social power of names and are verysensitive 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 thenaming process.

Nicknames may be understood via internal or external strategies.An internallyderived nickname may be based on a phonetic similarity with or a reduction of arecipient’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 adiminutive (e.g., an0-i 0 among English speakers, as inJoey, Joe, Joseph, ora diminutive0-it-0 infix among Spanish speakers, as inMaurita , Maura; some-times pet names or diminutives are referred to ashypocorisms). However, not allinternally 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 originalnames as the point of construction or inspiration: A linguistic quality, usuallyphonetic but in some cases semantic, associated with the recipient’s originalname(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 thename Plato, a reference to his broad shoulders; Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi iscertainly better recognized as Botticelli, a reference to his shape and its similarityto a “little barrel.” Another external path by which nicknames may be formedderives from a famous, striking, notorious, or shameful incident. For example,jazz alto saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley received his nickname notbecause of his large size, as might be assumed, but because of his impressiveappetite:Cannonballis 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 animpressively complete list of nicknames and0or epithets associated with specificethnic groups, consult Allen 1983.) Pulgram (1954:11–18) notes that many ofthese same sources for externally derived nicknames are the origin of many Indo-European, Semitic, Chinese, West African, and Native American surnames. Thatis, what began as an “ekename,” or nickname, has diachronically evolved into asurname.

Goodenough discusses the variety of personal names found among two soci-eties in Oceania. He draws two basic conclusions: Names often function “asconstant reminders to people of things about their identities [they] want to bereminded of” or “they are things about which most people want to remind theirfellows” (1965:275). Bean states, “All speech is potentially an indexical sign ofthe speaker, the addressee, the time or place of speaking” (1978:4).8 Nicknamesmay be characterized as those things (events, characteristics, social hierarchies,etc.) that members of a community want to emphasize to their fellows, even if therecipients of the nicknames prefer to be reminded of or to index other aspects oftheir 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 moreprivate aspects of his or her identity.

Pseudonyms, assumed names, aliases and name changes

The two Greek morphemes that make up the wordpseudonymmean literally‘false name’. However, Room (1981:5) makes the case that a pseudonym may bemore accurately defined as an “assumed name,” since these names are most oftentaken 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 originalname is rarely referred to. That definition is assumed here. The crucial distinction



between nicknames and pseudonyms is that recipients usually select their ownpseudonyms; nicknames are usually chosen for them. Furthermore, pseudonymsare changes that apply more often to a surname than to a given name, thoughsome pseudonyms involve changes to both. Nicknames primarily target givennames, though surnames may also serve as their inspiration.

Pseudonyms are common among individuals who assume a new, more publicidentity (e.g., in politics, in social and religious contexts, and especially in enter-tainment). For example, “Sojourner Truth” was an assumed name, selected by therecipient herself to represent her new role as a seeker of black and women’sequality in the 19th-century USA. Members of many Roman Catholic orderschoose new names to represent their new spiritual lives: Mother Teresa was bornAgnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Black Muslims often drop their surnames, which theysometimes identify as “slave names” (typicallyAnglophone-derived names stem-ming from the history of European colonialism in the Atlantic region), whenadmitted into the Nation of Islam (Malcolm X [Shabazz] was previously namedMalcolm Little; Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay).9 Pseudonyms are alsofrequent among actors; before the 1960s, actors with “ethnic-sounding” namesoften adopted more “Anglo-Saxon” pseudonyms – Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtiswere originally named Issur Danielovitch and Bernard Schwartz.

Pseudonyms or assumed names can be distinguished from genuinely “falsenames,” oraliases, by which an individual attempts to maintain a new identitythrough the creation of a new name, while seeking to deny any historical con-nection to the previous name and its corresponding identity. Aliases are oftenassumed by criminal suspects who hope to disassociate themselves from criminalacts 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 prioridentity.As with most alternative naming strategies – whether pseudonyms, aliases,nicknames, or ethnic names – they often indicate the emergence or creation of anew social identity.

Within the context of the immigrant experience in the USA, some ethnic groupshave traditionally sought to change their names by Anglicizing what might beperceived as an “ethnic” surname (any surname that impressionistically seemsnot anAnglophone name). Christopher (1989:31) claims that theAnglicization ofimmigrant names within the territory that would become the USA can be tracedback at least to the 18th century, when some German immigrants Anglicizedsurnames (e.g.,MuellerandSchmidtinto Miller andSmith). By the late 19th andearly 20th centuries, many Ashkenazic Jews immigrating to the USA also trans-lated original Germanic names into theirAnglophone counterparts (SchwartzandKlein into BlackandLittle).

Both surname translation and outright name change in the USA are oftenassociated 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, lesstransparent motives. The “melting pot” perspective assumes that all ethnic groupsimmigrating to a specific host country share similar pre-immigration experi-ences, motives for immigration, and motivation for name changes precipitatedby immigration. It is revealing to consider the name changes that followed themajor wave of Jewish immigration to the Americas in the late 19th and early20th centuries.

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Ashkenazic Jews residing in Europe wereoften legally compelled to abandon their original Hebrew-based names and toassume names derived from the local language of power. The national or regionalgovernments 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 1977for compulsory name adoption by European Jews, as well as an excellent discus-sion of name alteration and changes among Jews in general). Once the fluidhistory of Jewish naming practices is revealed, one further name change in theAmericas hardly seems an act of assimilation for a people forced over centuriesto become flexible and adaptive. In fact, name changes may have been preferredby Jews not so much to assimilate (though this goal was certainly a factor forsome, 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 toJews vis-à-vis the dominant culture wherever they had resided.

This distinction is important because what appears superficially as an act ofassimilation may be more appropriately viewed, instead, as a means of culturalmaintenance achieved via the strategies of secrecy and concealment (see Scott1985). The case of alternative names among Jews is also useful to contrast withthe 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 Hispanophonenational identity in Panama through the maintenance of ethnic personal names.Secret names or concealment of names is one motivation for and a correlate ofalternative 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 governmentshas been carried out in other cultural and geographical contexts as well. For ex-ample, Johnson states that the colonial British in Sierra Leone “abolished nativenames wholesale, considering them ‘heathenish,’and substituted European namesinstead” (1921:87). However, as early as the late 19th century, West Africans inSierra 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 Africanidentity vis-à-vis the pervasive European colonial influence. “A number of Cre-oles . . . ‘reformed’ their names as well, either shedding their ‘foreign’ surname to



adopt one with an African ‘sound,’ or adding an African name to their Europeanone” (Spitzer 1974:117).Tamura (1994:170) describes how Japanese students wereassigned English names as replacements for their original names at schools in Ha-waii in the early 20th century. Nonetheless, many Japanese in Hawaii maintainedJapanese names at home andAnglophone names in general public life, illustratinga dichotomy found among the residents of Bastimentos as well.

Surname changes may also be invoked in response to age or at the threshold ofa ritual event. Assumed names have been traditionally associated with femalesparticipating 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 herhusband. In many societies today, there are several alternatives associated withmarriage 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’sname 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 compoundedform 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 femaleshave two official surnames: The first is the father’s surname, derived from hisfather, and the second is the mother’s surname, derived from her father. For amale, this compounded surname appears on all official documents, even if he ismore commonly known by simply his father’s surname. Upon marriage, femalestypically discard their mother’s surname and replace it with the husband’s fa-ther’s surname.

One further type of name change isteknonymy, the practice of designatingvarious 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 personalnames and its regular substitution of what are essentially impersonal status terms”(1964:94). Alford believes teknonymy to be “a means of showing respect whileavoiding 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 theJapanese. This kinship-based system of name change does not figure among theAnglophone 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 preferredfor 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 andpseudonyms, as well as their own unique social correlates related to issues ofethnic identity, cultural maintenance, solidarity, and resistance. The term “ethnic



names” may also be considered equivalent to a term more specific to the culturein question. For example, “Creole names” would largely cover one component ofthe duality of names in Bastimentos. However, I use the term “ethnic names” toemphasize the fact that competing national and ethnic identities often requirediscrete 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 Fasold1984:53). Ethnic names are “in partabout the sociocultural world and in partintheir 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 nativevernacular. They adopted Latin (or Greek) names for convenience in dealing withRomans. 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 ofthe 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 usedor even remembered by recipients, while the name of widest currency within thespeech community is called the “nickname,” even if that term fails to capture theextensive distribution and usage of what I have labeled ethnic names, or whatevermay correlate with other social identities besides ethnicity in specific speechcommunities. Pulgram makes the case that, etymologically, a “nickname” or an“ekename” was a “byname” (called here an ethnic name), despite the modernperception of nicknames as shortened forms of given names, or names given toindividuals 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, theresidents of Bastimentos have purposely sought to “de-Hispanicize” their officialSpanish-derived given names by the strategy of ethnic names; thus, a womanofficially namedLiliana is known locally asYaya instead (see Table 1). Theethnic 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. Moreimportant, 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 thename is rarely, if ever, written down. The ethnic name identifies a resident ofBastimentos as an Afro-Panamanian Anglophone Creole speaker whose ances-



tors came from the West Indies. Nearly everyone in the town center is familiar toeveryone 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 withthe 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 withmore than one ethnic name. However, ethnic names in the Bastimentos commu-nity differ substantially from the typical pattern of nicknames associated with chil-

TABLE 1. Sample of ethnic namesin Bastimentos.

Ethnic nameOfficial Spanish

given name

1. Anna Mae Nidia2. Betbet Roberto3. Betty Roberto4. Boss Rafael5. Charley Herminia6. Chichi Veronica7. Chola Viviana8. Chubb Alberto

(Indian, Boy)9. Cooley Elizabeth

10. Coon Alvaro11. Cootie Enrique12. Dodosh Fulvia13. Dune Oscar14. Gadí Lucrezia15. Gang Enrique16. Hochi Harvey17. Jetbo Arquimedes18. Luch Florentina19. Pápa Enrique20. Peck Oscar21. Puma Michon22. Silk Michon23. Skip Demetro24. Soap Dario25. Tatash Harvey26. Tiger Tito27. Yaya Liliana28. Yogo Graciella



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 thenames that recipients actuallyprefer to be recognized by in both forms of refer-ence and address within the community, especially when referenced through theuse of the local Creole language.10That is, the typical pattern of nicknames foistedon individuals against their will doesnot capture the dynamics of ethnic name-giving in Bastimentos. Residents participate in the maintenance of their ethnicnames and even sanction the use of those names in a manner reminiscent of pseud-onym assumption. Furthermore, unlike nicknames, ethnic names in Bastimentosare almost never internally derived. They are also rarely Spanish-derived (exceptin 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 ofBastimentos prefer Creole-derived names as markers of ethnicity and solidarity.

Both pseudonyms and nicknames often index an emergent or latent socialidentity. Ethnic names in Bastimentos are similar in that they index both ethnicand linguistic identities (Anglophone, West Indian, and0or Creole) that, thoughhighly valued and salient locally among the Ol’ Bank population, are generallynot valued or even recognized by outgroup members of Panamanian society atlarge. At this point, we may generalize that ethnic names are generated by exter-nal naming processes for purposes of identity creation, often associated withcultural 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 todistinguish or emphasize specific ancestry. Though the ethnic name is preferredin local Creole contexts by most speakers, individuals most often revert to theirofficial Spanish-derived names when outside this locally constructed Creole lan-guage context. This characterization was often verified empirically in contexts inwhich I spoke Spanish with consultants. I also observed this pattern while wit-nessing conversations in Spanish throughout my six months on the island, duringan election campaign for a national representative from Bocas del Toro provincearriving from off-island, and when I attended a formal elementary-junior highschool gathering in which only Spanish was spoken. The relationship betweenlanguage 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 casesof (ethnic) identity concealment is also relevant to the development and usageof ethnic names in the Bastimentos speech community. In general, name changesmay function as the foundation for implicit cultural maintenance or conceal-ment. However, if ethnic identity may be concealed within social contexts, thereverse may also be true. Ethnic identity may also be asserted, emphasized, orproclaimed in other social contexts. In Bastimentos, the creation and mainte-nance of ethnic names reflects the development of dual social identities thatAfro-Panamanians of West Indian descent must often construct and negotiate



in Panama as they move between Anglophone and Hispanophone worlds. Lo-cally, Anglophone-derived names and West Indian-derived culture dominate onBastimentos island. Beyond the island, Spanish-derived Panamanian culture dom-inates, with geographical pockets of Creole-speaking communities in PanamaCity and Colon, and within the province of Bocas del Toro. Clearly, ethnicnames are just one component in the creation of these competing identities forBastimentos residents, but these names are salient markers of the dominance ofone language0culture over another in specific contexts. The contexts that in-duce ethnic name usage match nearly precisely those in which Creole languageis spoken. That is, language choice invokes the usage of ethnic names in Bas-timentos. Multilingualism often indexes different social identities, so it shouldnot be surprising that speakers often prefer different names as symbols of theseidentities, which are often invoked by language choice. Other minority groupsin 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, LatinAmerican, and Asian descent in the USA often maintain ethnically identifiablesurnames, even if their given names reflect Anglophone influence, and even ifthe ancestral language has been replaced by American English.

The ethnic name is the designation an individual willingly recognizes withinthe community as a form of address. In Bastimentos, individuals prefer theirethnic names to the official names on their birth certificates. There are only fewcontexts in which they use and recognize their official Spanish-derived names,mostly contexts that require literacy in Spanish or explicit reference to names ondocuments – interactions with police and educational institutions, voting, healthcare, or (less often) introducing themselves to tourists (mainly North Americansand Germans) who speak Spanish, unaware that the main native language of thecommunity is an English-derived Creole.

I encountered this contrast between official and ethnic name usage because ofa methodological strategy I was employing to gather grammatical material onwhat was then an undocumented Creole language. When conducting interviews,I decided to speak to informants in Spanish as much as possible to avoid leadingthem toward a particular English-derived construction present in my own varietyof English. Since most of my interviews were in Spanish, I usually elicited theofficial 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 conductpersonal relationships. Often, when I referenced an individual’s Spanish-derivedname 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 Creole0ethnicones. I began to realize that most individuals had two names, and then I focusedon referencing the Creole-derived name because it was the one better recognizedby 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 Spanishand 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 ritualcontexts 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, sinceany 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 WestAfrican languages long ago spoken natively or still heard in vestigial form inthe area. Spanish-derived names or words reflect the obvious fact that Spanishis productive in the area. My goal in this study is not to determine the Africanorigins 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 1973and 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, andMichon) and the corresponding individuating ethnic names. That is, noethnic name occurs twice in the sample data; and, more important, to my knowl-edge no ethnic name occurs twice among the Afro-Panamanian population ofBastimentos. In contrast, Spanish-derived official given names are repeated inmany 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, neitherCholanor Pápaare repeated as ethnicnames among the Bastimentos Creole-speaking population, which again sug-gests the individuating function of alternative names, as well as their contrastivecultural function. However,Pápa reflects an Anglophone phonological stresspattern (cf.Papá in Spanish).Betbetmay also be a hypocorism related to thereduction of the official nameRoberto(. Berto. Beto. Bet), with reduplica-tion at play.Bettymay also be a reduced form ofRoberto, with the Anglophonepattern of suffixing0-i 0 as a diminutive.

Table 1 also reveals a binary pattern (or bias), in that males in Bastimentosoften 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 socialcontexts (Pápa, Boss) indicate this preference. The data from Belize, discussed



below, show a similar predilection for animal names, such asSnake, Lion, andCat, as alternative names for males.

A L T 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 culturesdiffer in showing preference for names that are symbolically appropriate” (Bean1978:86). In this section, I summarize and correlate a number of case studies inthe West Indies that offer insights and0or parallels to the pattern of ethnic namesin Bastimentos, without suggesting any necessarily causal or direct historicalrelationship 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 oftenfor males than for females in a given society. For example, Manning, writing ofBermuda and Barbados, states: “Women are also known by nicknames, but to alesser extent than men” (1974:124). This characterization also applies to the dataI 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 theseparate social identities that different languages may index; see Trudgill 1983for a discussion of covert and overt prestige and how these patterns relate tomale0female 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 phoneticallyreduced forms of Spanish-derived given names (e.g.,Dorinda. Dorie). That is,bilingualism, at least in Bastimentos, appears to encourage a kind of generalassimilation in which local naming practices are commensurately diminished.However, day-names in Jamaica and Suriname (see below), a now defunct butonce productive naming system, seem to have been applied equally to males andfemales.

An examination of Manning 1974 and Crowley 1956 raises the question whetherthe alternative naming systems they describe are most accurately captured by theterm “nickname.” It may be more illuminating to consider many of these in-stances as ethnic names instead. In government administrative contexts, in whichmore standard and politically powerful language forms are often spoken, onemay predict that an individual will reference his or her official name; however, ininstances 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 (whichfriends and family are mostly unfamiliar with) simply that.

Jamaica

DeCamp 1967 details the obsolete Jamaican tradition of day-names derived fromthe Twi-speaking region of modern Ghana (the Gold Coast, during the colonialperiod). The day-name assigned to a child reflects its sex and the day of the weekon which it was born. These distinctions are indicated by a specific name for eachday of the week and by a male0female suffix (e.g.,Juba for a female born onMonday; the -a suffix indicates ‘female’;Cudjoeis the male counterpart). Thisday-name system seems clearly to have been a West African cultural retention,though Twi speakers were not the only West African cultural group representedamong Jamaica’s slave population. The use of day-names diminished throughoutthe colonial period, passing through a stage in which they acquired pejorativemeanings (see Dillard 1972:123–35 for a discussion of the same day-names amongAfricans and people of African descent in the USA). By the 20th century, thissystem 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 ofthe day-name system, DeCamp disagrees. He writes unequivocally: “At all sociallevels, from illiterate cane-cutter to university professor, Jamaicans enjoy givingfanciful names to their friends and to themselves” (143). He provides no otherreference to nicknames or the creation of alternative naming systems.13

Burton 1999: provides evidence that slaves in Jamaica participated in multiplesocial and cultural identities, which were in turn referenced by alternative names:

Slaves commonly used two, three or even more names according to contextand circumstance: an African name when talking to Africans . . . an ‘official’European-style name when addressing – or, rather, being addressed by – Massaor 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; forthose born in the Americas, the so-called nickname may more precisely be con-sidered the ethnic name used for referencing the emerging identity and ethnicityof Afro-Caribbean, Afro-American, or Creole as something related to but distinctfrom a specific ethnicity and culture in Africa.15 The “European-style name”seems to correspond generally with “white name,”bakáa ne˘, or pseudonym, asused by the Saramaka (see Price & Price 1972 and below).



Suriname

A system of naming according to the day of the week is also found among theNdjuka (Kahn 1931:128–129), a Maroon group of Suriname in northern SouthAmerica. Modern-day Maroons are the descendents of slaves who rebelled or ranaway from plantations on the coast to form independent societies in the interiorrainforest. The Ndjuka descend from a group that formed during the early part ofthe 18th century. The Saramaka, another Maroon group in Suriname, formedsomewhat earlier. Both groups created their own discrete, mutually unintelligiblelanguages via creolization processes (see Price 1976). According to Kahn, theday-name (to use DeCamp’s term) system also derives from the Twi-speakingpeoples of WestAfrica.16 He states that the Ndjukas have at least two names, “onewhich everyone may use and another which depends upon the day of the week onwhich the individual was born” (1931:170).17

Price & Price 1972 discuss names among the Saramaka Maroon group ofSuriname, distinguishing three general types of personal names: (i)Gaán ne‘bigname’ or ‘true name’, which becomes restricted in use in late adolescence andearly adulthood; (ii)pikí ne‘little name’ or ‘nickname’, which is usually exter-nally derived; and (iii)bakáa ne˘ ‘Western name’, literally ‘white name’, a namechosen by men who work on the coast of Suriname in a more European-influencedcontext where Dutch or Sranan (a third English-derived creole of Suriname) areoften spoken. In the Saramaka case, name types (ii) and (iii) correspond well tomy general definitions of, respectively, nicknames and pseudonyms. It appearsthat in Saramaka society, any male may select hisbakáa ne˘, and that anyone, maleor female, may generate and receive severalpikí ne. Bakáa ne˘ seem to correlateclosely 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 whenreferencing thesebakáa ne˘, Saramaka will speak either Sranan, the lingua francaof Suriname, or possibly Dutch, the colonial language of power also spoken in thecapital, Paramaribo. In any case, one would be surprised ifbakáa ne˘ were usedwhen speaking Saramaccan, the ethnic language of the Saramaka. Among soci-eties that display multiple or alternative names, language choice often invokesthe use of an alternative name, ethnic or otherwise.

Price & Price (1972:345–348) also discuss the origin of names in Saramakasociety and reveal that these names are broken down according to what I havedesignated as externally and internally derived routes for nicknames. This is notto say that all names in Saramaka society may necessarily be considered nick-names, though a subset are explicitly so labeled by the authors. They provideseveral insights with parallels to the Bastimentos case: “Almost anyone is free togive a name at almost any time” (349); “Many names given to newborn childrenhave no explicit meaning” (347; see the discussion of euphony in n. 7): and “Bythe 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 theFrancophone West Indies before its colonial transfer to the British in the 19thcentury. Owing to this mixed colonial history, St. Lucia reveals two restructuredlanguage varieties: an earlier, French-derived Creole that seems to be losing num-bers of speakers to the more recently emerging Anglophone Creole. Crowleywrites that a child (females are not mentioned as recipients of these names; allexamples are of the kindTi Son‘little boy’, Gwo Son‘big boy’) may receive, ingeneral, two types of names: ano sudor nickname, and ano savanor “bushname” (1953:90). Later, he describes ano sudas a “pseudonym,” then states thatboth ano sudand ano savancan be nicknames or aliases (90). Thus, there appearsto be a rich system of assigning alternative names in St. Lucia, but it would bedifficult on the basis of Crowley 1956 alone to assign it to the taxonomy of namesdiscussed above.

Despite his lack of rigor in distinguishing between nicknames and pseud-onyms, Crowley offers some valuable motivations for naming in St. Lucia. Hesuggests (90) that the goal of secrecy, with two different motivations, is largelyresponsible for maintaining a variety of names for individuals (cf. the role ofsecrecy in name changes by Jewish immigrants; see Aceto 1995, Bellman 1984).One motivation is concealment of identity from government representatives, andthe other is secrecy for the religious purpose of hiding one’s identity from some-one who intends harm throughobeah(sorcerous) activities. Crowley claims thatnaming customs in St. Lucia “provide an effective means of passive resistance tounpopular, or unsympathetic administrative influences, political, religious, andlegal” (92). A similar naming dichotomy related to a bureaucratic or national0local juxtaposition is revealed by Burton (1999:49): Martinican males in theFrancophone 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 orchurch name, which is rarely used, and the ‘house name’by which they are knownin the community” (1962:91). He further states that anyone in the communitymay 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 knowledgeof it may permit it to be used in conjunction withobeahand cause the bearer ofthe name harm. This distinction between sacred and profane names is paralleledin the geographically proximate case of St. Lucia (St. Lucia and Carriacou sharea similar dual colonial history), and it could also be argued that it represents a



kind of alternative name patterning – with, of course, different social motivationsfor its maintenance than found in the case of Bastimentos.

Regarding the maintenance of secrecy surrounding sacred names, Herskovitsstates:

Names are given at stated periods in an individual’s life, and, as among all folkwhere 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 onegiven him at birth by a particular relative, must be kept secret lest it come intothe 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 asacred0profane dichotomy motivated by secrecy. Clodd (1920:65) describes thesecrecy associated with Sinhalese “rice names” as a safeguard against sorcery.Harrison 1990 describes the secrecy surrounding names and the power inherentin 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 anindividual in Barbados by using his “official” name. Eventually, a woman real-izes for whom Manning is searching and provides the man’s “nickname.” Bearingthis 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 theindividual in question, butonly by what Manning calls a “nickname” (in myterms, an ethnic name).19 In Bastimentos, the Panamanian police rarely visit theisland except to question an individual (almost always a male) regarding a crimeor make an arrest. Often the police, nearly always Hispanophones and not of WestIndian 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, therewas general confusion about the specific identity of the person the police werelooking 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 theform of feigning ignorance in order to hinder the police (see Scott 1985:33–34 forfeigned ignorance as a strategy of resistance).

Manning’s article on names in Bermuda and Barbados offers other parallels tothe Bastimentos case. For example, most of the nicknames for people in bothlocations are externally derived, having no phonetic or semantic relationship tothe 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 namesare arbitrary in that there is no natural, universal, or inherent semantic connectionbetween a word (a sequence of sounds or gestures) and its referents, even if themotives and pattern for naming are transparent and can be easily explained (cf. n. 7



for discussion of non-arbitrary names raised byAlgeo 1973). In Bastimentos, thispattern is also revealed by ethnic names such asYogoandYaya. Manning adds,“Nicknames are normally acquired in youth . . . they tend to ‘stick’ to a person forlife. Occasionally, a nickname or second nickname is gained in adulthood” (124–125). In Bermuda, “nicknames” are so closely associated with an individual’sidentity 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 whichan 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 theseindividuals 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 possibleAfrican language etyma among the Gullahs of the Sea Islands of Georgia andSouth Carolina. Turner describes the naming system of these English-derivedcreole speakers:

Most of the Gullah people use two kinds of given names. One is English, andthey 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, knownalso as the pet name or basket name. In their homes and among their friendsand 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 Englishgiven-name. The nickname is nearly always a word of African origin. Whennot 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, “Themeanings of many of their names are not known . . . the sound of a word may bethe sole reason for its being selected” (41–42). We might again question whetherany name that recipients have trouble recalling can accurately be called a “true”or “real” name, even if the speech community’s attitudes toward these specificcultural 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 ondocuments and used for writing and literacy. It is more illuminating to considerthe 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 passinginto obsolescence: “The youngest of the bearers of the names are around twentyyears old, but these are conspicuously few. The majority of the names are ofpersons thirty-five years of age or older” (1994:27). Baird & Twining insist that



basket names are given soon after birth, but that an additional (third) name maybe acquired during adolescence or even later (23). This “nickname” may be de-rived from some “physical or temperamental characteristic or some incident inwhich 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 communityis 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 betweengiving a basket name, reportedly in the cradle, and giving a nickname at any pointduring childhood or even later. Nonetheless, the external routes by which basketnames may be derived are no different than those for nicknames in general (28).

Belize

Ken Decker (personal communication, October 2000) has generously shared someof his preliminary data on names among Creole speakers in Belize. Belize is amultilingual area in which Creole English, English, Amerindian languages (e.g.,Mayan, Carib), and Spanish are spoken in different combinations by differentsegments of the population; the official language is English. The Creole Englishof Belize descends historically from contact between African slaves and Anglo-phone European settlers who migrated from Bluefields in Nicaragua in the 18thcentury. In a pattern similar to that found among residents of Bastimentos, morerecent Anglophone immigrants from the Western Caribbean have contributed tothe form of Creole spoken today. Belizean Creole speakers have a rich system ofethnic names, though the specific language dynamic is different from the situa-tion in Panama, where the official language is Spanish. Nonetheless, regardingtheir 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 aninternally 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 L T 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 regionaland cultural naming system found among peoples ofAfrican descent in theAmer-icas vaguely to West Africa, or simply to Africa. Little research has succeeded inassigning a geographically or ethnically defined naming practice in the Americasto a specific cultural or linguistic group in West Africa (see DeCamp 1967 andKahn 1931 for two important exceptions). One primary reason for this uncer-tainty lies in the incomplete records of the importation of slaves from places inWest Africa. It is often difficult to know exactly where an African slave in theAmericas 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 andrigorous in assigning etyma to specific Gullah names from specific West Africanlanguages. However, even he is unable to assign the system of basket names usedamong Gullah speakers to a specific WestAfrican origin. We will not be any moresuccessful here regarding the Creole speech community of Bastimentos. Mintz &Price write that “one must maintain a skeptical attitude toward claims that manycontemporary social or cultural forms represent direct continuities from the Af-rican homelands” (1992:52).

The discussion of “continuities,” “retentions,” or “survivals” from Africaoften 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 theAmericas. Convergence may be one of several factors making such a specifichistorical 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 thisfeature 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 toassign 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 bemaintained in an emerging or creolizing language or culture. In short, the largerthe number of composite cultures forming a matrix that share a given feature ina specific location, the greater the chances that this feature will be maintainedor exhibited, in some similar but altered form, in the subsequent emerging cul-ture (see Mufwene 1993 for references to convergence within the context oflinguistic and cultural creolization). I tend to agree with Mintz & Price (1992:52–60) that modification, adaptability, and change characterize any cultural groupintegrating elements from composite sources (African or otherwise), in con-trast to an approach that views culture as frozen in time when transported fromone 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, ineither case, in a rigorous and precise way), or in the various systems of alternativenames found in other Afro-Caribbean or Afro-American speech communitiesdiscussed here. Since there is irrefutable historical and contemporary linguisticdata indicating African influence in the Americas, one would not be surprised tofind cultural retentions (albeit modified) from West Africa, such as the system ofday-names described by DeCamp 1967 (see Cabrera 1970 for one example ofWest African religious survivals). However, that level of specificity – tracing theroots of a single cultural component of a specific ethnic group in the Americas toprecise origins in West Africa – is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the



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 withalternative 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 westcoast of Africa. Though these are not “ethnic names” in the sense intended for theAfro-Panamanians of Bastimentos, they suggest a general cultural propensitytoward multiple names. Herskovits believed that flexibility of names is an Afri-canism in general: “Among Africans, a person’s name may in so many instanceschange with time, a new designation being assumed on the occasion of somestriking occurrence in his life, or when he goes through one of the rites markinga new stage in his development” (1941:190). (Compare this with the externalroutes by which nicknames may be derived.)

Fortes 1955 examines naming practices among the Tallensi (the language hasthe same name and is part of the Gur language group) of Ghana. He reports, “Aperson 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-guardianname” (339). Fortes claims, “Naming customs of the kind I have described arefound among all the tribes and peoples of Africa” (349).

The Yoruba of Nigeria (and, to a lesser extent, in Benin and Togo) may have asmany as five personal names: a birth name, given about a week after birth; aChristian or Muslim name from the Bible or Qur’an; a name that recipients givethemselves or that is given to them as a result of some attribute; a praise name, aspecial name usually given by a child’s grandparents; and initials, usually the firstletters 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 betterknown by it than by their real names. Some do not even know their own realnames when the attributive is popular” (1921:85) (cf. other cases discussed abovein which recipients often could not remember their “real” names).

The Ovimbundu of Angola have a fluid system of personal names. Hamblyreports, “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 ismore unequivocal about the Ovimbundu: “In adolescence young people discardthe names with which they were born and name themselves” (1969:87).

Herskovits discusses at length the Dahomey people of what would be calledTogo today. He writes: “Every exploit in a man’s life is signalized by the choiceof a new name for himself, and a man’s position in a community is enhanced byhis resourcefulness in originating for himself ingenious names” (1967:151). Fur-thermore, a child in Dahomean society can receive up to three names at birth, andadditional names can be added in early adulthood (263–266).

Alternative names in general (even ethnic names specifically) are not limitedto the Caribbean or the larger Atlantic region. Similar naming systems have beendocumented 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 usuallyrealized.

D I S C U S S I O N A N D C O N C L U S I O N S

Why would the residents of Bastimentos advertise so prominently their lack ofHispanophone roots by abandoning Spanish-derived given names in local con-texts? The short answer is because ethnic names with their Creole-derived originsmore closely index who they are in terms of language and cultural identity. Thatis, the general Panamanian social identity largely constructed in Spanish is lesssalient and relevant than the Creole component within the narrow Anglophonecultural sphere in which most residents of Bastimentos live, even approximately150 years after this community was settled. Locally, the Creole-constructed iden-tity is the most conspicuous, and thus it demands Creole-derived names and usageas one component of ethnic identity.

What factors might account for how speakers focus on the social or ethnicgroups with which they wish to identify? That is, what constraints might impingeon individual acts of social, ethnic, and linguistic identity, and what effect mightthese 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 findit 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 theirbehavioural patterns; (iii) the motivation to join the groups is sufficiently pow-erful, and is either reinforced or reversed by feedback from the groups; (iv) wehave the ability to modify our behaviour. (1985:182)

In Bastimentos, strangers are not given Creole-derived ethnic names for use inreference and address at least until they identify the local speech community asAnglophone Creole speakers, achieve some proficiency in Guari-Guari (or somevariety 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 inlocal contexts. In other words, not only do the four criteria described by Le Page& Tabouret-Keller affect language choice and thus ethnic name usage, amongresidents of Bastimentos; in addition, fieldworkers and outsiders in general arelimited in their ability to gather data or witness ethnic name usage until theyfulfill those criteria. This characterization certainly applied to me while I wasconducting my own research. Of course, issues related to solidarity and poweralso function in Bastimentos society (see Brown & Gilman 1972). For example,outsiders often must participate in some act of solidarity with locals by speakingsome form of English before ethnic names are divulged, since relatively fewisland residents are willing to initiate conversations in Spanish.



Price & Price (1972:357–358) suggest that, in Saramaka society specificallyand in the Afro-Americas in general, some types of names are marked to beavoided in use with strangers or outsiders, and usage of those names may becircumscribed under the guises of etiquette and good manners. In Bastimentos, itis never a face-threatening act (Brown & Levinson 1987) simply to reference andaddress individuals by their ethnic names – and these names are in no way similarto “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 allmembers of Bastimentos society manifest towards specific individuals (e.g., ad-hering to the diminishing custom of addressing elder residents by the titlesMisteror Missplus 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 appropriatein such “official” contexts.

One possible social and economic motivation for the use of ethnic names isthat 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 arequite 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 andsocial rewards to the residents of Bastimentos. In fact, many of them identifymore strongly with (and have extended families in) other Anglophone West In-dian communities farther north up the Caribbean coast in Puerto Limon andManzanillo, Costa Rica, than with West Indian communities in the national cen-ters of economic and political power in Panama City or Colon. Consequently, theties of nationalism appear less vital than local ethnic identification that connectsfamilies sharing similar histories and cultures across international borders. Fur-thermore, the rewards of linguistic and social assimilation (and their purportedeconomic benefits) are far less apparent and accessible in Bastimentos than theymight be in more heavily Spanish-dominant spheres of Panamanian public life.When economic opportunities are few, the disadvantages of demarcating oneselfethnically and0or linguistically from the population at large are commensuratelyfewer. A natural prediction is that members of economically poorer social classesnot only have different ways of speaking (or social class dialects), as has beenclearly demonstrated throughout the sociolinguistics literature of the past 35 years,but also that alternative naming systems, of which ethnic names constitute oneexample, may emerge in these same communities.

Residents of Ol’ Bank reference and address themselves as Anglophone WestIndians through Creole language usage and the use of ethnic names because theyare West Indians, and because there are no negative repercussions, social oreconomic, for doing so. In fact, in such an economically depressed area, there areonly positive repercussions correlated with maintaining ethnic identity. On theother hand, Spanish (and, to some degree, varieties ofAmerican English) is viewed



as a key to social and economic advancement in Panama. Thus, if residents ofBastimentos were to relocate to more intensively Hispanophone-dominated areas,we might expect this Creole language dominance (as well as the frequency andregularity of ethnic name usage) to shift in favor of the wider, Spanish-derivedcomponent 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 haveconfirmed it anecdotally when discussing the erosion of Guari-Guari usage amongyounger Anglophone speakers throughout Bocas del Toro.

The contrast between official and ethnic names offers some insight into thelinguistic, cultural, and historical dichotomies that the Bastimentos communitynegotiates 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.22The vitality of alternative names in Bastimentos and in otherAnglophone Creole-speaking areas of the Caribbean may be viewed as culturalmaintenance or as a kind of resistance to the dominant culture. For more than acentury,Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent in Bastimentos have sought tokeep alive their West Indian culture by maintaining Creole as the first language ofthe community, along with the ethnic naming system. However, residents stillrecognize the bureaucratic usefulness of utilizing Spanish names on official Pan-amanian government forms.23

Most likely, the documented cases of alternative naming systems discussedabove are just the beginning of establishing this phenomenon of attaching discretenames to the multiple identities (ethnic or otherwise) that humans reference everyday. Studies among non-Afro-Americans do not seem wholly different from theAfro-American or African cases (see n. 21). What appear as considerable differ-ences in specific details may often obscure basic human cultural patterns. Specificcultural 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 ofBastimentos are somehow unique in their use of ethnic names. More important isthe 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 severalor 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 languageof power. For example, many immigrants in the USAhaveAnglicized their namesor adopted Anglophone names for exclusive use among English speakers, whilemaintaining original or ethnic names for ingroup usage.

I have proposed that the cultural patterns displayed in the use and maintenanceof ethnic names correlate with linguistic behavior associated with multilingual-



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 semanticmeaning in terms of the way in which each individual wishes to project his0herown 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 Creolespeakers in Bastimentos.

N O T E S

* Aversion of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society ofAmericaand the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in Washington, DC, January 2001. I am grateful toJeffrey 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 familiarwith varieties of American English.

2 Creole English emerged on San Andrés and Providencia in the 17th and 18th centuries as a resultof British colonial activities in the western Caribbean, and, though the islands are currently controlledpolitically 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 languagelessons 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 localsin 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 documentssuch as a birth certificate, high school diploma, passport, or marriage license.

6 The folk etymology often associated with the wordnicknamehas 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 wordnicknamewas originallyekenameor ick-name. The archaic wordeke“also” isrelated to the Old English verbecan‘to enlarge, to add to, to increase’, and only survives today, to myknowledge, in the expression ‘to eke out (e.g. a living)’ and in the compounded but altered formnicknameunder 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 morphemeeke(a Germanic form), was combined withname(a Romance word) in the Middle English period(approximately 11th to late 15th centuries), and preceded by the indefinite article, the morphemeboundary was subsequently reanalyzed by speakers to derivea nicknamefrom an ekename. Theprosthetic0n-0 reanalyzed as the onset of the first syllable ofnicknamehas allowed English speakersto assume (from both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective) that the first morpheme is derivedfrom the wordnick ‘to cut or notch’. This association has often led English speakers to assume that anicknameis a contraction of a longer name. Though this reduced name pattern is certainly a subset ofthe entire phenomenon of nicknames, this type of nickname perhaps represents the least interesting ormost transparent case. In most other instances, a nickname is phonetically unrelated to an individual’sgiven or official name and is derived via externally motivated routes discussed above. This misun-derstanding of the etymology ofnicknameled Kohl & Hinton (1972:126) to assume that thenick- innicknamewas 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 theabove 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 asnonarbitrary (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 thedichotomous pattern of internally and externally derived nicknames, the motivation for the creationof nearlyall 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 sobecause the motivation for the naming act is more opaque than other instances of naming, or perhapsbecause a specific name is based on euphony instead (e.g., the ethnic namesYayaand Yogo forBastimentos). An arbitrary name may be considered one where the name is neither internally norexternally derived but only based on euphony, or what the name-giver subjectively finds pleasing tothe ear. However, one may argue that this euphonious quality is most likely at play in the generationof 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 socialidentity 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 theonly languages spoken.

12 In Lipski 1989, the Afro-Panamanians in question are not the ancestors of Anglophone WestIndians but the descendents of Spanish0Panamanian colonial slaves; see Cabrera 1970 for anothercase in Cuba.

13 The practice of assigning names according to the day on which a child is born is not limited toTwi-speaking cultures. The Igbo of Nigeria often name children twice. One name specifies the day onwhich 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 Amerindianpopulation of the West Indies.

15 The same confusion in the literature about what constitutes a “nickname” applies to Burton1999.

16 Twi-derived day-names similar to those found in Jamaica are also found in Ndjuka society, e.g.Adjoba(cf. Jubain Jamaica) for a female born on Monday andKodjo 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 amongthe Surinam Carib Indians” (170). Whether this secret naming custom was borrowed by the Ndjukafrom 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 bothreligious and secular names, first names as well as surnames. A Jew sometimes had one name in theJewish community and another for civic and business purposes” (1977:18–19). This pattern of ethnicnames 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 inArizona bytheir Spanish-derived “official” baptismal names (personal communication, Sept 2001).

20 Speakers in Bastimentos sometimes call their English Creole “di bad inglish,” and while thislocal attitude cannot be linguistically justified or validated, it offers some insight into the lack ofprestige 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 ofidentical names among Gaelic speakers in East Sutherland leads to the use of ‘by-names’almost to theexclusion of official names” (303). Goodenough 1965 describes how it is common in the Lakalaicommunity of Oceania for children to receive more than one name “for the place, time of year,



weekday, or other event or circumstance associated with their birth” (269). Collier & Bricker 1970describe 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 firstname, 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 surnamecombinations (291). Consequently, a system of so-called nicknames has developed, which is used forreference “but never for direct address” (291) in order to reduce the ambiguity associated with thethree sources of names noted. These “nicknames” are so productive that they often replace the Indiansurname and subsequently become associated with family tree structures or genealogies. (It should benoted that Collier & Bricker call a “nickname” any subsequent name that does not fit the threecategories of naming mentioned above.) Bean 1978 describes a complex system of address in aKannada community in Bangalore, India. Some of the Kannada have nicknames, and, as is commonwith 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 usedto address and reference younger adults as well (106).

22 I have been told that other Creole-speaking communities in Panama exhibit this same culturaland linguistic pattern, but I have not yet confirmed it empirically.

23 Alternative names are not without pragmatic considerations. Many members of the Nation ofIslam 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 beenobtained (Lincoln 1961). Malcolm X assumed the surname Shabazz so that he might travel abroadwithout having to reference his previous surname, Little.

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(Received 11 June 2001; accepted 1 February 2002)

