Naming Africans

Oyeronke Oyewumi is Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA. In her award-winning book The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses ( 1997), Oyeronke Oyewumi makes the case that the narrative of gendered corporeality that dominates the Western interpretation of the social world is a cultural discourse and cannot be assumed uncritically for other cultures. She concludes that gender is not only socially constructed but is also historical. She has recently held the role of series editor for the Palgrave series 'Gender and Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora', and has published widely on gender. Titles include What Gender is Motherhood: changing Youba Ideals of Powr, Procreation and Identity in the Age of Modernity, Palgrave Macmillan (2015) and Gender Epistemologies in Africa: Gendering Traditions, Spaces, Social Institutions, and Identities, Palgrave Macmillan (2010). Hewan Girma holds a PhD in Sociology and a graduate certificate in Women's and Gender Studies from Stony Brook University in New York. She is currently an Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she co-founded the 'Ethiopian and East African Studies Project' (EEASP), an intellectual space to explore the histories, cultures and significance of Ethiopia and East Africa as part of the global African Diaspora. Her research focuses on Ethiopian history, culture and migration. Her work has thus far been published in Social Problems, Sociology Compass, the Journal of Black Studies and the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies.

1.Introduction: What is Not in A Name? On the Epistemic Value of African Personal Names and Naming Practices.- 2. Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered Names, and Naming Practices by Oyeronke Oyewumi.- 3. Amharic Names and Ethiopian Naming Ceremonies.- 4. Engendering Personal Names in Basaa Culture: From the Origins to the Epic Tradition and Beyond.- 5. What's in a Namesake: The Mbushe and Gender in Owambo Naming Practices in The Purple Violet of Oshaantu.- 6. Names are sighs of divinity from our forebears: Exploring names through the lens of Ntsiki Mazwai.- 7. Decolonial Epistemologies in Indigenous Names of the Bakiga of Southwest Uganda.- 8. Mother-Agency and the Currency of Names: Gender, Power and the Privilege of Naming among the Maragoli of Kenya.- 9. Akan "Day Names" as Archives of Indigenous Knowledge:  Some Preliminary Thoughts.- 10. Tell me your name and I will tell you who you are: the construction of names in Angola and the colonial influence.- 11. Naming Practices and Language Planning Zimbabwe.