Fatal Address : Proper Name Taboo and the Dead-Naming Prohibition in the Earl Brand / Ribold and Guldborg Tradition

Abstract

This article examines a specific form of anthroponymic taboo: the prohibition against uttering a combatant’s proper name at the decisive moment of battle. Using the Earl Brand / Ribold and Guldborg ballad complex as its central case study, the article argues that this prohibition constitutes a historically meaningful onomastic pattern rather than a merely decorative narrative motif. The study combines close reading of the British and Scandinavian ballad record with comparative onomastic theory and anthropological work on name avoidance, true-name ideology, and verbal danger. The analysis shows that the interdiction “name me not” operates as a context-bound rule of anthroponymic management, one activated under conditions of mortal risk, kin-conflict, and liminality. In the northern ballads, the heroine’s breach of this rule triggers the hero’s death, thereby converting naming into a fatal speech act. The article further argues that the motif preserves the convergence of two older logics: tactical non-identification in feud warfare and a wider belief that the personal name is an exposed extension of the self. By reframing the motif as an onomastic phenomenon, the article contributes to scholarship on names as socially regulated and pragmatically dangerous forms, and proposes the category “dead-naming prohibition” for traditions in which pronouncing a person’s proper name is believed to precipitate injury, capture, or death.