The Significance of Names in Ghanaian Drama

Abstract

The significance attached to names and naming in Ghanaian society is remarkable; it is strikingly different from what obtains in Euro-American cultures. Names of peoples, objects, spirits, and God tend to emanate from the interplay of religious, mythical, social, and historical realities (Abraham, 1962). Individuals are named on the basis of the culture's expectations and identification of the personality so named with particular clan or genealogical groups beliefs, birth order and circumstance, status, and attributes (Quartey-Papafio, 1913). For example, the Akan call a male child born on Saturday Kwame. A child doomed to cyclical birth and death is named Bejina (come and stay) and one whose paternity is not acknowledged or who is born to aging parents is called Nyame Kye (God's gift). Asante military tactics and Ga striking power are celebrated in the appellations Asante Kotoko (Asante the Porcupines) and Gagaa (Ga the Soldier Ants), respectively. This system of nomenclature seems to be the basic one subscribed to by many other African peoples including the Yoruba, Ewe, Igbo, Hausa, and African-Americans. Though the elaborate and formalized naming pattern may have been lost among the latter the African presence is maintained through the AfricanAmerican's widespread use of epithets, bynames, and nicknames (Asante, 1987, p. 73). Naming has colored the writing and artistic works of Africans, from earlier generations to contemporary times. What is lacking, though, is a systematic study of the nature and qualities of such nominal colorations as they arise from the various parts of the African world. The present article is a modest contribution in this

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