Revisiting the Judicially Changed Personal Names in Ethiopia: A Study from a Sociolinguistic Perspective (1960-1995 E.C.)

Abstract

This paper presents some sociolinguistic observations on the impact of changing political, economic and sociocultural factors on names and naming practices in different administrative regions of Ethiopia. The approach is contrastive by which we compare judicially-changed personal names during three periods, namely 1963-65, 1973-1975, 1993-1995 (E.C.). The study uses empirical data, consisting of actual occurrences of personal proper names collected from the public notices that appeared during the three periods in two Amharic newspapers: the daily Addis Zämän and the weekly Yäzareyitu Ityopya and personal interviews with notable personalities such as religious leaders. The data show the nature of the differences between the personal proper names undergoing changes within the specified periods. Among the changes in the personal names, the majority were changes in one's own name and the second name-change was that of the father or grandfather or change in all three. Finally, when these names were analyzed, it was found that the changes were often from Moslem or chosen family names to Christian names, but sometimes also from a personal name designating a certain ethnic group to a different one. It is argued here that these changes can be largely explained by the political, economic and sociocultural changes that have occurred in Ethiopian society.