FAMILIY NAME : THE MALAGASY NAME, A PROPERTY, AN IDENTITY...

[♥Dany♥]

CHOICE OF THE CHILD'S NAME
The Malagasy young boy is circumcised as soon as he is sufficiently strong to support the operation. The circumcision can be done individually or by group of children; it is according to the families and the areas.
Circumcising a child is a way to introducing him into the adults social life, it is a way of allotting a NAME to him.
The Malagasy baby girl is not excised. That is valid for all the island.
Formerly, a Malagasy child received a NAME. Traditionally the first name was unknown or rare.
The name which GIVES HIM THE PARENTS (especially the MOTHER) is always in relation to the history or the genealogy of the clan.
A Malagasy name is long because it represents a summary of the family genealogy or the history of the child's birth.
A baby is not obliged to bear the name of the father because the Malagasy society is a matriarchy and the heritage was transmitted by the Mother's lineage.It often bears the name of the mother's father, or of the mother's brother.…
The married woman had and has always the right to keep her young girl's name

One who know the main periods of the history of Madagascar can guess the time of attribution of a name:
1/ - Kingdoms era: RAKETAKANDRIANA…
2/ - British influence: RAJAONA, RAJOHN, RAJOHNSON (John's son) ) RAJAONESY (Johannes) RAJEMISA (James) etc…
3/ - French rule :- It is the appearance of first names and names with the father's patronym (Jean, Marie, Pierre)…

Traditionally, and it is always applied in some countries until this day, the child's name was hidden because of fear of witches and evil spirits. To protect the kid bad nicknames are given, as BETAY (big shit), BELOHA (big head), BEMASO (big eyes), KALA RATSY (ugly girl), BOZY (="Cinderella") etc...

In Sakalava (northern western and southern western) Betsileo (southern highlands) and Mahafaly (southern) areas the King's name, after his death, is changed at the burial ceremony and his alive name is fady (taboo) to be pronounced because he has joined the divinities which protect the kingdom.

[Daniel Leuck]

Based on Dany's description there are many similarities between Malagasy and Hawaiian names. Old Hawaiian names were unisex and often described something happening around the time of the child's birth. They could also come from the place of the child's birth, the station of the child or simply be poetic. It was believed the gods named children by whispering their name into the ear of a family elder. Like Malagasy names, Hawaiian names were often very descriptive and lengthy. An example is Kamakanamakamaemaikalani "precious gift from heaven".

After the introduction of Christianity both western names and Hawaiian versions of western names became common. Examples include Alika for Alex or Iokepa for Joseph.

Wikipedia has a good entry on Hawaiian names, although it isn't as comprehensive as some printed references I've read.

[Mika Leuck]

Thank you for the great blog post answering my question about Malagasy names!

re: your question about Japanese names
Before the Meiji restoration (late 19th century) only royalty such as samurai had family names. Common people only had a given name. Many considerations went into a name such as position in the family and hopes the parents had for the child. Japanese names are written with characters borrowed from Chinese called kanji. Women's names are usually poetic. The characters in my name, Mika, mean "beautiful and smart". There are other ways to write Mika such as "beautiful smell".

Emperor Meiji issued a law that all people had to take family names. Many of them took their name from where they lived, something near where they lived or their profession. For example, Ishikawa means "stone river". My family name Terada means temple in the rice field.

Japanese don't normally have middle names but some Christians take another baptismal name. This name is only used in church. Christianity is not a major religion in Japan. Most people are technically Buddhist and Shinto, but most young Japanese are not very religious.

re: Hawaiian names
Dan knows more about Hawaiian names. I'll ask him to follow up on this question.