The power of naming and its gendered effects: materials for a comparative anthropology

Résumé 0

The study of naming practices offers valuable information about power relations between the sexes and the process of their symbolic differentiation. Men and women may have powers of naming that vary as between societies. Such power may reinforce or counterbalance the structuring effect exerted by any given kinship system on intra-family relations, and may convey a image of greater or lesser prestige for men and women. It is also possible to study inequality between the sexes, by observing the differences which may sometimes exist in the construction, symbolic content and use of male and female given names. But the name can also be a powerful weapon, including for women in patrilinear societies, in the battle of the sexes, or rivalry between persons of the same sex. The extreme case of societies where it is possible to take a name usually given to the opposite sex offers an opportunity to test the performative theory of naming, whereby the name creates the gender, and to perceive some of the factors by which the gender effects of a name may vary.