Introduction

Abstract

Names have long been regarded as symbols of the self and components of identity formation, signifying biography, social place, and collective histories. They allow the expression of connection and disconnection to families, communities, collectives, and their related narrative of social history. A large body of research documents the role of names in the social construction of identity, and more recently, the power of naming to serve as a form of social control and political action. A range of procedures connects naming practices to a person’s civil status. There are those who have no right to assert a name for themselves, since under specific political-historical circumstances, powerful others have appropriated that right. This was the case for slaves, who got their names from their enslavers, or more commonly today migrants, whose names are casually distorted by official administrators unable or unwilling to spell them properly. Likewise, illegal immigrants or excluded social actors are at times deprived of the right to be registered under their names in official records. And then there are those who have the power to insist on self-naming, despite social expectations that they would be named by others (e.g., married women who refuse to take their husbands’ names).