A Sociolinguistic Study of Ewe “Drinking” Names

Abstract

This paper examines a category of Ewe personal names that are called ahanokwo or ‘praise appellations’. This is a category of names taken by the individual later in adulthood. The name is a whole discourse comprising a prompt, which is the clipped form of the discourse, and a response, which is the appellation that goes with the name, and is part of the discourse. These names perform various functions – they praise, they exhort, they insinuate, they warn against bad behavior, they entertain and they comment on life in general. They represent the philosophical and religious aspirations of the Ewe people. The paper discusses these functions and also the literary devices that these names employ, such as metaphor, symbolism and personification.