Abstract

Traditional namesake practices are indisputable naming conventions among the Bende people, through which old names are maintained without infiltrating the community with new ones. It is believed that, when a person who had lived earlier on, had led an impactful life, there is the need to keep their memories immortalized in the life of another, rather than creating an entirely new one. Thus, the Bende people in Abia State have been consciously identified by the recurring naming identity pattern in which as many as qualified people can bear a particular name in a particular extended family. This peculiar onomastic practice has been so misunderstood by others that it has become imperative to study and investigate why certain names are repeated, by whom, and to also identify the cultural events that herald such processes. To achieve this, this study adopted a descriptive qualitative research design to investigate the linguistic and cultural significance of namesakes. Forty participants were selected, using purposive sampling from the area of study, through whom data was elicited. Participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions were primarily used for data collection. The collected data were translated and analysed using thematic analysis to identify and categorise patterns. This study was based on socio-onomastic theory, and revealed the names recycled, the reasons behind them, the cultural significance of this onomastic practice, the conditioning of names in Bende, the namesake ritual, and the perceptions of the namesake pattern by the community.

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