Traditional personal names: an investigation into Songhay anthroponomastics

ABSTRACT: Human beings have always been characterized by their names, naming ability and practices.Names are created and shaped by sociocultural values and serve to give an identity to their bearers. They tellabout the place and period of birth of the bearers, their social status, gender, the birth order in the family, etc.The Songhay society of Northern Mali makes use of the same naming devices in that it describes and names itssociocultural environment, expressing by the same token, the Songhay philosophical thought and visionsurrounding those names and naming systems. In fact, most Songhaytraditional names have faded away underthe heavy weight of Islam and Christianitywhich have come to impose new names and namingpractices.Research in Africanonomastics,Songhayonomastics included, is generally scanty. No serious study isknown to have taken place specifically onSonghay traditional personal names. Therefore, this investigation isundertaken to fill this gap. The study focuses on the determination of the types of Songhaytraditional personalnames, the circumstantialmeanings that induce their creation and attribution and their morphology. Theparticipant interview was used to collect the data fromSognhaynative speakers of Gao and Timbuktu living inBamako.The name typologies (including the circumstantial meanings) uncovered by the study involve thekinship system, the period of birth (including the day, month or season), the social status of the name bearer(slaves), protection and/or survival, blessing, beauty, complexion, etc.The morphological typologies basicallydisplaysimple nouns with 44.08% of frequency rate, followed by noun-adjective combinations, 26.88%, and twonoun combinations, 15.05%.

KEYWORDS: Songhay, personal names, anthroponomastics, onomastics.