Vol. 72 No. 4 (2024): NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics
Articles

Name This Child: Religious Identity and Ideology in Tiv Personal Names

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  • Eyo O. Mensah
Eyo O. Mensah
University of Calabar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/names.2024.2716

Published 2024-12-02

Keywords

  • personal names,
  • Christianity,
  • Islam,
  • Tiv,
  • religion,
  • identity,
  • ideology
    • ...More
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Copyright (c) 2024 Eyo O. Mensah

Creative Commons License

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

Abstract

This article investigates the motivations and ideological foundations of religion-based personal names among a sampled population of the Tiv community who are predominantly found along the middle Benue Valley in Benue State, North-central  Nigeria. The  names  bestowed  by adherents of different religions (traditional Tiv, Christianity and Islam) reflect a personally determined system of representation based on a belief in spiritual practices and icons like witchcraft, an afterlife, the influence of ancestors, and a supreme God. This investigation demonstrates how religious names in the Tiv sample reflect a strong symbolic association between the name-givers and their faith or beliefs. The names also provide a platform whereby religious adherents can initiate a dialogue with supernatural forces. Religion-based names also permit adherents to project a healthy self-image and create psychological unity thanks to the sense of protection that they are believed to confer.1

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