The nexus between language and culture is grounded on the fact that language expresses, embodies and symbolises cultural reality (Kramsch 1998). Such a nexus falls within the ambit of anthropological linguistics. The majority of personal names are derived from words already in use in a language. Names also indicate language structure (Anderson 2007); hence,Utley (1963) argues them to be part of the grammar of a language. However, their meaning is socially constructed within a particular culture (Aceto 2002) and these cultural meanings warrant an anthropological-linguistic perspective that is concerned with relations among language, society and culture, involving speech communities, the performing of language and socio-cultural representations in language. In practice and literature, the domain of anthropological linguistics is interchangeable with that of linguistic anthropology (Foley 1997; see alsoNassenstein and Völkel 2022 for a more detailed description of the framework of this book series). The study of names (proper nouns) is part of language studies and it, too, cannot be separated from cultural and social performance. An interrogation of anthroponyms (personal names), for example, goes beyond the structural appreciation of language into the domain of anthropological linguistics, which attempts to explain hidden meanings behind language use, different forms of language and the use of registers and style (Foley 1997). Different types of anthroponyms have been analysed in linguistics, anthropology and philosophy, and they have been proved to be referential, descriptive, symbolic and in some cases to have psychological effects and power.
From a cross-linguistic perspective, names are a typological universal. This means they are found in all human languages around the world, and they are used by people of all societies (Hocket 1963: 17). However, typological studies show that they differ in form, function and usage across languages and cultures. Therefore, Van Langendonck and Van de Velde (2016: 18) define a name on cross-linguistically shared semantic-cognitive grounds as “a nominal expression that denotes a unique entity at the level of established linguistic convention to make it psychosocially salient within a given basic level category”. As such, they are definite, mostly singular and without a defining sense (as compared to common nouns).
Anthroponyms, in particular, are proper names of humans, denoting individual persons or groups of people. Person-denoting names for individuals are, among others, given names, surnames, nicknames and pseudonyms. Some of these names include a relational component, i.e., a connection to another person is established, such as the mother in matronyms, the father in patronyms or the children in teknonyms. Apart
