New Trends in Yoru?ba? Names: Revisited

Abstract

The importance of personal names and surnames has attracted the interest of Yoru?ba? scholars such that many of them have researched on different aspects of Yoru?ba? personal names and surnames. This paper focuses on the new trends in Yoru?ba? surnames and the initial letters of names employed as appellations in Yoru?ba? society. Data collection for this paper relies on fifty elite informants who are Yoru?ba? native speakers, and were selected among males and females. They were between the ages of 40 and 65 years. Five secondary schools in Ekiti State and Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti were selected as the research field. The elites were selected because these new trends are common among them. Text materials and journals on names were also contacted from Ekiti State University Library and other neighbouring university libraries. Findings revealed that although there are many researches on names, attention has not been paid to the fact that some elites use the combinations of their family’s names and personal names as surnames, and initial letters of some names have also formed appellations instead of the normal way of forming appellations. This paper is a contribution to the existing works on names, and it adopts sociological theory for data analysis.