When Exceptions Define the Rules

Greek Baptismal Names and the Negotiation of Identity

Bibliographic Data

ID2981065
AuthorsM Herzfeld (0000-0002-8080-2542, corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume38
Issue3
Pages288-302
Publication date1982-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Anthropological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-7710 • E-ISSN: 2153-3806
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/jar.38.3.3629850
OpenAlexW2330900049
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited19

Personal names reflect the tension between social and individual levels of identity; their conferral and subsequent use in address and reference are consequently invested with ideological significance for actors. Exceptions to norms of both conferral and use may be justified in the same ideological terms as are normative practices, so that apparently rigid, local-level norms seem to be elements of a larger, more flexible semiotic complex encompassing norms and exceptions alike. By way of illustration, Greek data reveal an ideology of commemorative naming as reciprocity. This ideology entails choices about whom to recognize as a benefactor, and thereby shows how the existence of a set of rules for the selection of namesakes actually allows the strategic and selective expression of social alignments. In such a system, naming practices allow people to adjust genealogical history and other kinds of formal relationships to current social experience

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Expression (computer science) · Identity (music) · Ideology · Linguistics · Negotiation · Normative · Political science · Politics · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) · Semiotics · Set (abstract data type) · Social science · Sociology · Authorship Attribution and Profiling · Computer Science · Law · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism