Vol. 55 No. 1 (2007)
Research Article

North American Indians: Personal Names With Semantic Meaning

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  • Frank Exner,
  • Little Bear
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.2007.55.1.3

Published 2007-03-01

Copyright (c) 2007 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

This article describes the significance, characteristics, uses, and problems of personal names and naming practices among North American Indians. The three most important aspects of North American Indian personal naming are their:

• Three name forms (European, traditional, and mixed)

• Name changes which create name sequences (two or more names at different times) and name sets (two or more names at the same time)

• The effects of colonization on North American Indian personal names

North American Indian names represent one group of indigenous cultures whose names have semantic meaning, and, as this article suggests, names with semantic meanings may pose onomastic issues all their own.

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