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Transcript

Mini: Name Traditions · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to why we do what we do. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to why we do what we do Mini, I'm your host, Abraham,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm here Shane, and we are back baby lineup
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and release of episodes, which if you are joining us
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: for the first time, is a weird thing for me
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  Speaker 1: to say. But last couple of weeks we've just had
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of a shift in our normal publication schedule,
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  Speaker 1: so now we are doing our regular thing. So that's
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  Speaker 1: what that all means. And I hope that you enjoy
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  Speaker 1: that regular thing that we're doing. And if you're a
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  Speaker 1: returning person, then you did get that reference and hopefully
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  Speaker 1: you will enjoy what we're putting together and cooking up
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  Speaker 1: for you today. And either way, if you'd like to
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  Speaker 1: support us, you can leave us a rating and review,
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  Speaker 1: like subscribe, join us on Patreon, tell a friend. I'll
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  Speaker 1: talk more about this at the end of our discussion.
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  Speaker 1: But you know what, when we started this, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I am your host Abraham, and that is because that
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  Speaker 1: is what they call me.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was your god given government name.
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  Speaker 1: My government given name.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, at least.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, the reason I said that weird sentence is because
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  Speaker 1: we are talking about names, and I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: I introduced the rest of this podcast or a psychology podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We talk about the things that humans and non human
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  Speaker 1: animals do, and I feel like I'm missing something else
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  Speaker 1: or did I get through enough preamble to jump back
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  Speaker 1: into our topic.
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  Speaker 2: I think we can just jump right into it. I
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  Speaker 2: think you covered it.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, that was a sort of adhd way to
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  Speaker 1: do that. But we are talking about names and the
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  Speaker 1: fact that many cultures around the world choose names when
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  Speaker 1: they're giving names to the children because they have an
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  Speaker 1: explicit meaning. So their name might mean something like sense
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  Speaker 1: of purpose, it might mean or even say in that language,
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  Speaker 1: good fortune. However, there's this unique thing that in some cultures,
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  Speaker 1: particularly English ones and other sort of Western cultures, if
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  Speaker 1: you will, the name seem to have very little meaning
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  Speaker 1: and very little reference. So we are going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I'm really excited about this because I think of naming
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  Speaker 3: in my family is more so family lineage, yeah, than
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  Speaker 3: it is anything else. Yeah, And it's kind of loose, sure,
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  Speaker 3: and not really that important. But I do know that
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  Speaker 3: Shane means God's gifts, So there's that cool you know,
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  Speaker 3: somewhere down the line, which is it means yeah, somewhere
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  Speaker 3: down the line.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. It feels like that's maybe a very
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  Speaker 2: Irish thing. I think Shane comes from Sean, and Sean
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  Speaker 2: means Irish gift or God's gift or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: So all right, God's gift.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we are going to review some of the naming
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  Speaker 1: practices around the world in this discussion today, and let's
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and mop into it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, of course a name is a functional way
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  Speaker 3: to live in a social group, and without a social group,
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  Speaker 3: individual names wouldn't really matter. So we fairly universally have
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  Speaker 3: ways to refer to one another in one form or
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  Speaker 3: in the form of a name specifically, and different culture
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  Speaker 3: practice this in a lot of different ways. It's not
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  Speaker 3: the same standard that we have kind of like in
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  Speaker 3: the United States, grown up with, unless you've grown up
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  Speaker 3: in spaces where you have other cultures influencing that space.
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  Speaker 3: I did not grow up with this type of tradition.
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  Speaker 3: It was just this is your name because somebody else
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  Speaker 3: is named.
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  Speaker 1: This, right, Yeah, yeah, you know. This is probably the
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  Speaker 1: third episode we have done about names specifically. We did
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  Speaker 1: one on middle names, we did one just on naming
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  Speaker 1: and what effect that might have on you psychologically to
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  Speaker 1: a point, and this one is more about just how
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  Speaker 1: this varies around the world and the kinds of traditions
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  Speaker 1: people have around selecting those names. So in Russia it
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  Speaker 1: is common to give first names after saints. Russia actually
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  Speaker 1: commonly has first, middle and last names. Many cultures do,
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  Speaker 1: but not all anyway, first names are often after saints
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  Speaker 1: and also related to the day on which they're born,
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  Speaker 1: so boys born on the Sunday might be named Dimitri
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  Speaker 1: after Saint Demetrios Sure and other days have other names
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  Speaker 1: associated with them. And then middle names in Russia are
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  Speaker 1: often patronymic. There are patronymic names and matronymic names, and
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  Speaker 1: if you might get from the prefix or the root
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  Speaker 1: of those two words patra and matra, meaning father and
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  Speaker 1: mother respectively, the patronymic name means that it is a
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  Speaker 1: name after their father's first name. So for example, if
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  Speaker 1: the father's name was nikolay, he might give his son
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  Speaker 1: the middle name Nikolayevitch, and if the daughter's name middle
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  Speaker 1: name then might be Nikolayeva. And so those are I'm
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  Speaker 1: probably butchering those in Russian, but that would be how
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  Speaker 1: they would sort of change the father's name to become
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  Speaker 1: a middle name for the kids. And then last names,
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  Speaker 1: like many other cultures around the world, are often rooted
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  Speaker 1: in professions. So you have Kovalev which is blacksmith, or
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  Speaker 1: Popov which is priest.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, you know, it's funny because like I feel like
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  Speaker 3: that's that's how I got my name. Is my middle
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  Speaker 3: name is my dad's first name, and my last name
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  Speaker 3: is based on a profession that was many many centuries ago.
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  Speaker 2: We were we set up railroad spikes. So when we
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  Speaker 2: came to.
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  Speaker 1: Us, God's gifts two railroad spikes, God's gift to railroads,
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  Speaker 1: baby steam.
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  Speaker 2: Engines, go.
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  Speaker 1: Iin Rand.
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  Speaker 3: Now, in Spain, people have one or two given names
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  Speaker 3: and then two last names, one paternal and one maternal.
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  Speaker 3: So first names are commonly derived from Catholicism, so you'll
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  Speaker 3: see a lot of Catholic names in Spain, yes.
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  Speaker 1: And they are what you might imagine. Maria is very
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  Speaker 1: common because of.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Matteo, Yeah, yeah, Tomas.
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  Speaker 1: That sort of thing. In North Korea, the family name
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  Speaker 1: actually comes first, which is something we have probably all
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  Speaker 1: observed and then not really necessarily noticed that that was happening.
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  Speaker 1: So For example, Kim is a family name, and therefore
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  Speaker 1: people of that family, their first name you hear is
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  Speaker 1: Kim because that is the family name, versus in your case,
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  Speaker 1: Spiker comes last. Because of many cultures the family name
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  Speaker 1: comes at the end, but in Korea it comes first.
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  Speaker 1: If the family name is Lee, then the first name
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  Speaker 1: said of the children's names will also be Lee, and
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  Speaker 1: then the two names that follow reflect desired traits. So
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  Speaker 1: Lee g Hoon would be the family of Lee, and
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  Speaker 1: then Ghon means wisdom and favor. So you have the
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  Speaker 1: family name first and then two words that mean some trait.
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  Speaker 1: So if like your name could be Spiker wisdom and favor,
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  Speaker 1: but instead it is God's gift to railroads.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's funny. I was just I was
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  Speaker 3: just googling it and it actually means.
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  Speaker 2: God's gift to ads.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So we're talking about names across around the world,
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  Speaker 3: and in Africa there's I mean, of course, because there's
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  Speaker 3: so many countries there are, there's lots of variety in
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  Speaker 3: the way that this happens. However, what you find, and
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  Speaker 3: it's pretty common across the majority of African countries, is
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  Speaker 3: that names are highly sim and carry specific intended meanings.
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  Speaker 3: Different countries in Africa have their own traditions around this,
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  Speaker 3: of course, So for example, in some cultures in for example,
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  Speaker 3: Nigeria or Ghana, it is customary to name a child
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  Speaker 3: at the circumstances of their birth, such as the season,
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  Speaker 3: the weather, or time of day. In Kenya, they might
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  Speaker 3: be named after a treat their parents wish for them,
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  Speaker 3: as in North Korean cultures, but they might also be
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  Speaker 3: named after a struggle their parents endured as a representation
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  Speaker 3: of what they have overcome or are still overcoming, such
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  Speaker 3: as being named misfortune.
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  Speaker 2: So that might be a name that you might see somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it's negative, but it is meant
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  Speaker 1: to represent a struggle that has been overcome. So it's
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  Speaker 1: actually not intending to like in misfortune. It's like we
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  Speaker 1: have endured misfortune, now we are getting through it or
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  Speaker 1: on the other side of it.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 1: In India, children are often named for constellations corresponding to
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  Speaker 1: their birth date, called the Nakshatra, similar to zodiac, but
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  Speaker 1: in Indian culture. Instead, each of the twenty seven nack
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  Speaker 1: Chatra constellations has its own set of associated symbols. So
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  Speaker 1: an example of this is the first nock Chatra. A
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  Speaker 1: name that was for the first knock Chatra constellation would
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  Speaker 1: start with cho che Cheu or law, such as the
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  Speaker 1: name China would be a common Indian name for someone
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  Speaker 1: born during the first Nockshatra constellation period.
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  Speaker 2: Oh super interesting that I had no idea.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, me neither.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: In America, the prevailing tradition is to be named after
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  Speaker 3: a previous family member, like we mentioned, commonly the father
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  Speaker 3: for boys, or grandparents or other relatives. It's also common
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  Speaker 3: to use names from the Christian Bible, such as David, John, Luke, etcetera, etcetera.
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  Speaker 3: In some cultures, name borrowing is changing the spelling or
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  Speaker 3: pronunciation of a popular name, such as changing Jennifer to
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  Speaker 3: Tinifer or Cameron to Cameron with a y. To be clear,
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  Speaker 3: Cameron is Camern and some times we'll change that to
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  Speaker 3: c am r y n. So just changing the spelling
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  Speaker 3: a little bit, sure, But it's also extremely common it
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  Speaker 3: selected random name just because they like the way it sounds.
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  Speaker 3: Now I have done this with both of my kids,
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  Speaker 3: so my daughter is named after my previous family before
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  Speaker 3: they were adopted.
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  Speaker 2: So that's where Riley comes from.
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  Speaker 3: Her middle name comes from her mother, her biological mother,
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  Speaker 3: and she has my last name. Now, my son is
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  Speaker 3: named after Ethan Embry, the actor, because my wife liked
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  Speaker 3: that name. And his middle name is Bear because I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to name him Bear Thomas and she wouldn't let
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  Speaker 3: that happen.
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  Speaker 2: So his middle name is Bear with a German spelling.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome, so look at that.
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  Speaker 1: Very cool. And my name is Abraham, which actually does
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  Speaker 1: come from that was a family member that was like
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  Speaker 1: my mother's uncle or something like that. So it was
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  Speaker 1: a family name that multiple people generations have had that name,
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  Speaker 1: so it was one that I also got. And also
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  Speaker 1: for many people who are familiar with the Christian Bible,
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  Speaker 1: it is also in the Christian Bible. So is it
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  Speaker 1: I'm given to understand that's what they tell me anyway,
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  Speaker 1: just kidding, all right, Well, that is what we have
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  Speaker 1: to say about this. If you have some things you
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  Speaker 1: would like to add about naming traditions around the world
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  Speaker 1: that we missed or that would be a fun addition,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: or that you have thoughts around something that we've said
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  Speaker 1: and you'd like to correct, you can email us. You
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: can reach us directly at info at WWDWWD podcast dot
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: com or on the social media platforms, and we do
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: look he look forward to hearing from everyone there. But
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  Speaker 1: I think those what we have to say about this
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  Speaker 1: topic today. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap.
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  Speaker 2: Up, not at the times. Nice to be back, awesome,
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  Speaker 2: all right.
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  Speaker 1: So I will say, as I mentioned before, if you'd
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: like to support us, you can join us on Patreon.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: There we get add free episodes, early episodes of bonus content.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I'll do my best to keep up with those things
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  Speaker 1: given the chaos that is the world we live in
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  Speaker 1: these days, but it does really really help us out.
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  Speaker 1: And I will read your name and the list of
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  Speaker 1: names at the end of our full length episodes for
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  Speaker 1: the people who have made that leap. Otherwise, thank you
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  Speaker 1: for listening. We just appreciate everyone being here. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: to my team of people for helping to make this happen.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for recording with me today.
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  Speaker 2: Shane, Hey anytime, happy to be here.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Awesome, And yeah, leave us rating review like subscribe, that
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: sort of thing is a free way you can support us,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and I'll go ahead and leave it there. So I
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: think that's it.
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  Speaker 2: This is Abraham, this is Shane.
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  Speaker 1: Why we do what we Do Mini is out.
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  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: hope you have an awesome day.