WHAT'S IN A NAME? ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF A GREEIK FARMING COMMUNITY RLATED TO NAMINGX CUSTOMS1 Perry A. Bialor Northeastern University Naming practices, like systematic taxonomy, give expression to the dual human concern with classification and individuation. The name itself is a verbal tag by which the individual is, at least partially, made aware of his unique identity as well as some of his most intimate social alignments. Other members of his society can, likewise, identify him so that regularized and ap- propriate behavior is facilitated. There are permissive and prescriptive rules in the choice and in the use of names in reference and address that, as with kin terms, align some individuals, while separating others. Moreover, personal names, nicknames, surnames, and other names serve alternately with kin terms in the same functional patterns. It is the intention of this paper to examine comprehensively the various naming practices and the behavior associated with names and naming in Vergadi (pseudonym), a Greek peasant community. It will be shown that naming prac- tices (and modes of address) are closely related to aspects of the social organization and are reflections of interpersonal relations engendered by the ideology and by the acts of bestowing the name and of celebrating the name day of its bearer. Although most of the conclusions that follow are inferences from the normative statements of informants, they were checked against partial quantita- tive data whenever possible. Before discussing baptismal names and nicknames, an introduction to rural Greek social organization will be helpful, as. it is within this context that the names have meaning, are bestowed and used, and have consequences in related social behavior. Social Organization Greek kinship structure is based on bilateral reckoning of a personal, ego-oriented kindred, i.e. a filiation based on "equivalent bilateral extension" (Campbell 1964:220). The only social groups of permanent significance are the family and the community. The nuclear family is the basic household unit, and obligations to the bilateral kindred and affinals outside the nuclear familay are contingently and opportunistically recognized. Although the ustual houjse- hold is a nuclear family, the stem family in which a married son and. his family remains with the parents is not uncommon; there are even indications that fu-nc- tional, extended families were common when the community pursued a pastoral economy in the mounta ins. Marital residence is predominately virilocal and viripatrilocal. In the village studied, somewhat more than half of the marriages contracted were exogamous. Over 90 percent of the marriages are by sinikesio (arrangement), and a dowry is invariably nart of the pre-marital arrangements. The kinship terms also reveal that marriage is not merely a bond between two individuals but between two families. For example, the terms nifi and 2anibros mean "lthe woman who married into our nuclear family" and "the man who married into our nuclear family" respectively, or "bride" and "groom." The term sympetheroi is 96 not merely "in-laws" but rather "co-in-laws," just as batzanakis and sinifada are reciprocal terms of reference and address designating "men who are married to sisters and 9twomen who are married to brothers" respectively. Inheritance is partible; theoretically, each child, male and female, receives an equal share of the heritance. Land is individually owned, is re- ceived by inheritance from the father and the mother, is given as dowry and in the form of a settlement or transfer of land from the groom-'s father to the groom at the time of marriage; it is bought, sold, and leased through a variety of share-cropping agreements. Dowry property is the inalienable property of the wife, in which the husband has usufruct or caretaker rights for the support of the family, but which is inherited by the children directly from the mother. Dowry arrangements are often made to be paid in installments and are the joint responsibility of the bride's father and unmarried brothers. So much for context. Further clarification of the social organization of this peasant community will be presented as it relates to aspects of naming practices. Personal Names The names current in Vergadi are only a small selection from the reser- voir of possible Greek names but are representative of the name categories characteristic of any Greek society. Most names are those of Christian saints and martyrs; second numerical- ly are those of Greek heroes of all ages--but especially the ancient ones. Greek pride in their ancient history has resulted in such pagan names as Leonidas, Alkiviadis, Aristotelis, Sokratis, Platon, and Periklis, and Artemis, Afroditi, Pinelopi, Aspasia, Theodora, and Athina. Recently the Orthodox Greek Church is discouraging the practice of baptising with a pagan name; some of these names however, have been Christianized by having been borne by mar- tyrs and saints, real or imaginary, such as Dionysios (fem.: Dionysia) and Dimitrios (fem.: Dimitra). Female names, which have greater variety than male names, are less connected with Christian martyrology and its calendar. Women are often named for flowers, plants, spices, precious metals and stones, and for valued ethi- cal characteristics (Romaios 1959:311). Examples from the various categories include: Anthi (flower), Violetta (violet), Asimo (silver), Diamondo (diamond), Ourania (heaven), Sofia (wisdom), Fotini (lighted), Eftychia (luck), Kalomoira (well-fated), Areti (excellence), and Sofrosini (virtue), as well as some foreign names such as Venetta, Gloria, Florentia, and Olga. Men are more apt to be named after kin and more apt to bear Christian names celebrated by the church and the community as embodied in the religious calendar; men are "the symbolic carriers of the temporal'continuity of the fam- ily" in a patriarchal society, whether in Greece or the United States (Rossi 1965:503). In Vergadi, by far the most common male names are: Yiorgos, Konstantinos, Nikolaos, Panayiotis, Ioannis, and Athanasios, and the frequency with which they occur has not varied greatly over the past sixty years (see Figure 1). With somewhat lesser frequency occur Andreas, Vasilis, Anastasios, 97 Christos, and Dimitris. All of these names are celebrated on important name days of the Orthodox calendar. For women, aria, Vasiliki, Aikaterini, Paraskevi, Eleni, Angeliki, Anastasia, Yiorgia, and Dimitra are most common. For both sexes, five or six names occur with as great a frequency as all others combined. As the population is about equally divided between males and females, the greater variety of female names is due to the larger number of categories from which female names are chosen. As stated earlier. important consequences for interpersonal behavior are embedded in and follow from the choice, bestowal, and celebration of the personal name, and it is to these that now we wish to turn. There is a normative prescription in choosing the personal name for the first-born of each sex. The first-born of each sex ought to be namesakes of the paternal grandparents. The second-born of each sex would usually be given the names of the maternal father and mother respectively. The latter convention, however, is less prescriptive than the former. The choice of names of subsequent children is entirely permissive and may even be influenced by name fads. If a namesake child should die within the first year, the name is often bestowed on a subsequent infant. In the rarer circumstance that the child's father should die before the birth, the father's name would be given to the child "in order to continue his name." The custom of naming the first-born after the paternal grandparents tends to perpetuate and insure the high frequency of certain names, especially now that families are smaller than in the past. As the community is virilocal and usually exogamous, a child, his paternal first cousins, and his paternal grandparents usually live in the same village. When the naming convention is adhered to, the first-born children of male siblings would be namesakes of their paternal grandparents. To what extent are the normative expectations actually embodied in practice? There is evidence that the norm is adhered to in two-thirds of the cases of namesakes counted (see Figure 2). A reflection of the norm is also seen in the nine cases where the first-born male was named for the maternal grandfather; in at least five of the nine cases the father was a sogambros (a man who takes up residence in his wife's paternal household) from a I?foreignI village: the remaining cases might represent instances of uxoripatrilocal residence of grooms born in the village. Although being a sogambros is not a shameful disability, clearly the choice of the name of the first-born reflects the authority retained by the WiFa in his own household. Although the name is chosen by the child's parents, either prescrip- tively for the grandparents or permissively for other name models or freely from the categories mentioned earlier, the name is formally and ritually be- stowed during the act of baptism, in which the child is sponsored, not by the parents or grandparents, but by a godparent. The godparent relationship is established, in fact, by the act of sponsorship at baptism--and the koumbaros (godparent) is usually the person who later sponsors his godchild at marriage. Outside of the nuclear family, the koumbaria relationship often pro- vides the most significant interpersonal relations that a family has, even, at times, taking precedence over kindred. The koumbaros (and his wife, koumbara) 98 BAPrISMAL NAMES IN THE VILLAGE REGISTRY Figure 1 (Frequency of names which appear in the Village Registry, arranged by year of birth of name-bearer in three periods: 1890-1920, 1921-1940, and 1941- 1960. The registry does not include all people born in the village during the period covered. Many families no longer in existence or having migrated before the registry was rewritten are not included. Therefore, the count represents nothing more than approximate magnitudes.) MALES 1890-1920 1921-1940 1941-1960 Yiorgos Konstantinos Nikolaos Panayiotis Ioanni s Andreas Vasilis Anastasios Christos Dimitrios Ilias Athanasi os Michalis Theodoros Spiridon Leonidas Sotiris Evthimios Kanellos Alexios Angelos Stavros Asimakis Nikitas Petros Theofanis Philippos 23 23 22 20 13 7 7 7 5 14 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Yiorgos Konstantinos Nikolaos Athanasios Panayiotis Ioannis Andreas Vasilis Anastasios Christos Dimitrios Michalis Leonidas Theodoros Ilias Spiridon Antonios Yerasimos Evstathios Markos Asimakis Nik itas Gri gor is Apostolos Evthimios Taxiarchis Angelos Xenophon Dionysios Alkiviadis Dimosthenes Aristotelis 1 1 1 1 1 1 28 20 19 15 12. 12 Nikolaos Panayiotis Yiorgos Ioanni s Konstantinos Andreas Vasi l is Athanasios Dimitrios Michalis Anastasios Christos 9 9 9 7 6 6 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Stavros Apostolos Ilias Theodoros Sotiris Tr iantaf i los Periklis Achilleus Dimosthenes Aristidis 17 13 11 11 11 8 7 7 6 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Fi gure 1 coritinued 1890-1920 Eleni Paraskevi Vasi liki Maria Anastasia Aikaterini Dimitra Yiorgia Angeliki Alexandra Konstant ina Efrosini Zoi Asimi Pinelopi Archonto Irini Evangelia Akrivi Aspasia Sofia Athanas ia Chr i soula Argiri Evtychia Fotini Panagoula Polytimi Evthimia Pygi Anlia Martha Afroditi Athina Dionysia Rodoula Venetta 22 21 20 19 MaEria Vasiliki Aikater ini Angeliki Paraskevi Eleni Anastasia Dimitra Panayiota Yiorgia Asimo Aspasia Efrosini Konstant ina Evangelia Akrivi Christina Niki Zo i Stavroula 7 6 6 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 .1 Ioanna Athanasia Nikol itsa Evgenia Argyri Asimina Antonia Archonto Zafiro Kyriaki Loukia Sofia Pygi Rodoula Ourania Exakosti Gloria Violetta Florentia Eli ssavet Mairi Theodora Andrianna Nina Artemi s ia P inelopi Anti opi Athina Nafs ika 211 18 13 11 9 8 6 6 6 6 14 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 1 Maria Vasiliki Aikaterini Eleni Anastasia Yiorgia Panayiota Angeliki Dimitra Konstant ina Evangelia Irini Ioanna Kalomoira Sofia Diamonto Nikol itsa Athanasia Zoi Para skevi Pinelopi Antonia Efrosini Fotini Archonto Kyriaki Zafiro Evdokia Nina Violetta Lemonia Evstathia Margarita Agathi Andromache Antigoni Olga FEMALES 1921-1940 99 194t1-1960 7 7 7 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 - - 1 - -1 -- -1 -- - 1 -v - -." " - -." - - 100 ORDER OF BIRTH OF NAMESAKES FOR GRANDPARESYTAL NAME MODELS Figure 2 (Based on data recoverable from the village registry (demotologion) which includes 286 family entries. The counts that follow, however, yield only partial statistical data as some "family" entries did not have children and others lacked sufficient data, e.g. the parents' names of deceased heads of households, and of "foreign" wives were missing. Nevertheless, the order of magnitude of the figures for the different categories within the chart are striking.) Order of Bi rth MALES Named for: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th None for: HuFa 120 18 4 2 1 42* WiFa 9 13 11 1 8** FEMALES HuMo 16 1 2 WiMo 2 2 * In cases where there were one or more male children. > In cases where there were two or more male children. and the parents of the sponsored child refer to each other by the reciprocal term koumbare (fem.: koumbara). It is this relationship between the co- parents, the biological and the fictive, that is perhaps the most significant aspect of the koumnbaria, established through the ritual mediation of the spon- sored child. A warm affective relationship of mutual aid often characterizes the relationship between co-parents, while, at the same time, the godparent takes a special interest, obligatory and informal, in the personal destiny of his godchi ld. The godparent becomes a psychiki pateras (father in spirit), and by extension the godparent's children become psychika adelphia (siblings in spirit) to the baptized child; this, in the eyes of the church and of the com- munity, makes arny union between them incestuous. Whereas each baptized child will have one godfather (nonos; fem.: nona), the child's parents will have several koumbaroi, as a different godparent is chosen for each child. The effect of name bestowal and baptismal sponsorship by a godparent on the per- sonal destiny of the child does not extend to the other kouibaroi of the fam- ily and their children. In more than a metaphorical sense, the personal des- tirny of an individual is under the guardianship of his godparents, whereas sociologically the koumbaria relationship is a familial one. Godparents are chosen; kinsmen are not. Whereas kinsmen often have cause to argue over in- heritance and property boundaries, co-parents do not. Although parents will frequently solicit someone to act as sponsor either to strengthen friendship by the more formal bonds of the kounmbaria or to "get to know" the other person or, quite calculatingly, to establish a patronage relationship with someone of higher status, many people, themselves, will seek out opportunities for 101 becoming godparents. Acting as sponsor and godparent is said to be a mysterion (a sacrament) and, therefore, in some way a holy obligation. If a person is solicited to act as godparent, he will rarely refuse. Likewise, if a person solicits the parents, even long before the birth of the child, he will rarely be refused. The choice and bestowal of a personal name is not merely an idiosyn- cratic event. As we have already indicated, it is the principle means by which the koumbaria relationship, linking families in affective bonds, comes about, and, in the case of the first-born, and often the second-born, the name serves as a symbolic bond between alternating generations. The name, in the words of Levri-Strauss, also serves as "the link between the psychological as- pect of a personal destiny and its social aspect, which is the result of the giving of a name to each individual" (1966:172). The name as the bearer of a personal destiny applies particularly to namesakes of grandparents. The blood theory of heredity combined with the symbolic identity of namesake and name model establishes in local belief that the personal destiny of the namesake will in some way be effected by the per- sonal destiny of the name model. The character traits of the name model are thought to be 'inherited" along with the name. This belief was expressed scep- tically by my village informants and yet it does, nevertheless, influence par- ents in the choice of a name. If, for example, parents were concerned that the child should not resemble in character and not bear the destiny of the husband's father, they will avoid the grandfather's name. I was told that one man did not give any of his children the names of his parents because of his father's bad reputation; his brother, on the other hand, did give his child the grandfather's name. The case was cited by the villagers in support of their belief in the "hereditary" influence of the "9power" of the name, for the namesake, in later life, was divorced from his flrst wife and was living unhappily with his second, which, supposedly, was the pattern of the grandfather's destiny. The social aspect of the name is also seen in the style of celebrating the nameday and its affects on visiting patterns in the community. However, before further exploring these consequences of the personal name, further char- acteristics of-the social organization and ideology of Greek village life must be presented. The sole cohesive groups in the community are the households, consist- ing of nuclear families or, at most, stem families. As conflicts frequently arise between married siblings and between cousins over inheritances and bound- aries between the many small and scattered plots that constitute a peasant's holding, the kindred is not a cohesive unit; nor is the village community a co- hesive unit, except rarely in relation to conflicts with other communities. Moreover, relations between individuals-as members of particular families--are of a "contractual" nature (Foster 1961; 1963) and, thereby, limited in time and selective or opportunistic. The koumbaria, discussed above, is, of course, the only exception to the characteristically limited, contractual relationships. The household is, for the most part, an isolated unit; the nuclear family, al- most the sole claimant on the loyalty of its members. 102 An agonistic world view dominates most relationships between families, whether they are in actual conflict or not. A man's home is his fort, rather than his castle. A man's home is his private sphere of activity, and houses in the village are, in fact, usually surrounded by a high mudbrick wall with large wooden doors that can be bolted and locked at night or when its occupants are absent. Private and public spheres of activity are clearly separated. The former is confined to the household and the family; the latter to the agora (public square) and kafeneion ("coffee housel"), which are exclusively for men. Men spend their spare time in public with other males; women remain at home or visit each other in their neighborhoods. Visiting other households in the village is not a family affair nor does visiting regularly occur except by invitation for engagement and marriage parties. Visiting between non-kin occurs without invitation only to pay respects either for wakes or on namedays. Unlike wakes, familial namedays are recurrent and frequent events which allow a family to celebrate and be cele- brated through the name of the head of the household or other of its members. In Greece, individualistic birthdays are not celebrated, except by some urban and westernized individuals. An individual-and his family--annual- ly celebrate his nameday in accordance with its occurrence in the Orthodox religious calendar. All Georges, for example, would celebrate on the calen- drical holiday to St. George, whereas all Anastasioses would celebrate on the Anastasis (the Resurrection) or Easter Sunday. Therefore, a "class" of indi- viduals named George or Anastasios will celebrate and are celebrated on the same day, that of their name model in the annual religious cycle. By contrast, the American practice of celebrating the actual date of birth of each individ- ual is individualistic and reveals no pattern but that of a statistical occur- rence based on the accidents of conception and birth. When any member of a household has a nameday, it is the whole house- hold that celebrates. Kinsmen, koumbaroi, friends, and neighbors honor the family by a formal visit paid to the celebrant's home which is for that day an "open house." By contrast with American birthdays, which are celebrated by and for children and only minimally, if at all, for adults, the celebration of namedays in Greece is most elaborate for the adult male heads of households. Although the male celebrant would spend most of his time, as usual, in the agora and kafeneion, his wife and daughters remain at home (the private sphere turned public for the day) to receive callers in the saloni (parlor), which has been readied for the reception of guests. Guests are given a cordial, a sweet liquor, or something stronger, and sweets or cakes, purchased in the city. The guest congratulates and drinks to the health of the family, with the expression "Chronia pollal" (May you have many yearsO) The visits are not very long, but long enough to allow the women of the house to go through the ritual of offering liquors, condiments, sweets, and Turkish coffee (the last, usually being a sign that the ritual is over) and for the guests to congratulate and chat a bit with the women of the house- hold, other visitors, and the men of the household if they are present. There is considerable coming and going during the course of the day. A special meal, with meat, is usually prepared for the family and intimate friends and served later in the day, but this is not obligatory. Occasionally young umnarried 103 men tay use the occasion of their namedays for a gathering of friends at the home of the celebrant. Then, the evening's entertainment includes a meal with much drinking, singing, and ending in dancing and the breaking of glasses out of kefi (an excessive infusion and overflowing of spirit, impossible to trans- late adequately into English). While the women of the house are ritually receiving and entertaining visitors, the male of the house celebrating his nameday (or that of his wife) in the agora or kafeneion is being greeted by other males, and each "Chronia polla!" is usually reciprocated with a drink at the kafeneion. On namedays families are obliged to incur extra expenses for meat, cheese, fruit, sweets, and drinks, as well as the money spent in treating at the kafeneion. Interfamilial visiting on namedays, especially of males who do not otherwise pay formal visits to other households, can be viewed as functionally integrative in effect. It is an expression of harmonic relationships in the face of the day to day, mundane, agonistic world view. The social character of naming practices transcends the personal functions more immediately served. An individual is reminded that even through one of his most intimate posses- sions, his personal name, he is part of a temporal and socio-religious community. Males, in particular, are the bearers of Christian names which are recognized by the Orthodox calendar. Some female names, such as Yiorgia (for masc.: Yiorgos), are the feminine counterparts of male names and are also celebrated on the appropriate nameday; some other female names, such as Eleni, Aikaterini, Paraskevi, and Maria, have their own namedays being the names of saints or other religious personages. The clustering of familial celebrations on particular namedays ensures considerable and almost community-wide partici- pation in this pattern of interaction, especially on those five or six days for each sex which represent the most popular names. Three names are celebrated on the days of the community's panygiria (Patron Saint's Day Festivals). The principle patron, St. Nikolaos, is cele- brated on December 6; the secondary patrons, Sts. Konstantinos and Eleni, are celebrated on May 23. The celebration of both of these days are major secular and sacred communal events. Perhaps then, it Is not sheer coincidence that two of the most common male names, while eliciting considerable interfamilial and interhousehold visiting, are also the names of the patrons of the community. The panygiria are not merely commnity-wide affairs, but attract visitors from surrounding villages; it is, for example, one of the most appro- priate times for visiting kin in other communities. Although not highly institutionalized, there is an element of competition in putting on a panygiri that will be better and more attended than those of other villages and will "not be forgotten." The community expresses its solidarity not only in the familial participation in the public and village-wide celebrations on the paramoni (eve) and in church the following morning, but also vis-a-vis the visitors from other villages. On these days, and on these days only, the com- munity faces outward, attracting outsiders in a more regional visiting pattern based on panygiri participation than is otherwise commono 104 Nicknames Within the community nicknames are also employed, and these reflect aspects of the social organizations not apparent in the use of personal bap- tismal names. There are three kinds of nicknames--familialg inherited per- sonalgand uniquely personal. Most families in the village are known by familial nicknames which date back at least to the great-grandfathers' generation of the present house- holds. When a family had a paternal grandfather who was born in the community, then it usually possessed a family nickname. These names may have been de- scriptive of their original possessors, but are now sirmply inherited and cus- toiiary designations of paternally related families, although not now always bearing the same patriko onoma (surname), as some last names have been changed. The groups to which these names are applied are soi, a "minimal patrilineage" comparable to the Turkish lakap or the Arabic laqab (Spencer 1961). Although the soi is nonfunctional today, it probably was functionally significant when the community was organized for a pastoral way of life. These soi names are compounded of a stem, usually a nickname, and the grammatical suffix -el. The soi names in current use are: Bazei, Betsei, Boulikei, Katsavei, Klotsei, Kostandarei, Koufoyiannei , Koutsandonei, Paredrei, Papastathei, Stratsei, Stamratei, Tsakanyotei, Tsamei, Tsotsei, Tsoulei, Taflei and Valei, and include most of the older families in the village. However, several old and prominent families lack these soi names. Men often possess personal nicknames, which occasionally even supplant the personal baptismal name in address. This is particularly so in the kind of nickname that has been inherited; these names may refer to one, or more, of the sons as well as the father, and in a few instances this personal nick- name is known to have applied to three generations. When the continuity is broken in one generation, however, the nickname falls out of use and is not picked up again by the grandson of that family. Some nicknames attested in at least three generations are: Leonis, Bouchayas, Kourelis (ragpicker); others for two generations are: Lochias (captain), Vouzas (toad). The nick- name Lochias, for example, is used for an old man. whose unique nickname it was, and two of his grown sons; his third son is called Dekaneas (corporal), a nickname also applied to the brother of old Lochias, although the son of the latter does not bear the nickname. A unique personal nickname acquired during the lifetime of the indi- vidual is applied to at least half of the adult male population; some men are rarely referred to, or even addressed, by any other name. These names are usually acquired in adolescence or early manhood, but some are acquired in childhood and others only much later in life, supplanting an earlier one. Supposed personality characteristics, chance resemblances to animals, objects, or passing personages, or association with an event are equally bases for nicknaming. Names meant to be physically descriptive include: Voutselos (barrel), Karvounis (coal-like), Vouzas (toad), Mousolini; character traits are apparent in: Vergadi (young goat), Tsiftis (someone who can do anything--but applied to a man of the opposite character), Tifos (diptheria--applied to someone who 105 clung to people like the disease), Poutaniaris (whore-chaser), Pipiza (little whistle--for someone continually talking and whining), Agrios (wild-eyed), Aganatos (referring to a metal object that is so badly worn that it cannot be refurbished), Chodza (a Muslim holy man--given to a small crippled shoe- repairer with a "fierce" expression), and so forth. Other names do not seem to have any part icular meaning, such as Vayas, Fisouni, Skartsoras, Paloumis, Tsoutsouras and Bazi; Mamousiotis refers to a sogambros from Mamousia. Women are not given nicknames, and they claim not to know the men's nicknames, excepting those to whom they are related and thus hear referred to frequently. Whether this is, in fact, the case or whether such claims are made out of expected modesty, this ignorance, or professed ignorance, con- trasts with the men's knowledge of all nicknames and frequent use of them as alternatives to the Christian names. For women there is a special pattern as a common alternative to the use of their personal names. An unmarried girl nay be referred to as "the girl of so-and-so," using the father's nickname, if that is the usual form by which his friends address him. Married women are referred to and addressed by a form which is a grammatical fenmnine suffix added to the husband's Christian name--a practice we might call andronymy. Some common examples of these are: Yiannya (wife of Yiannis), Yiorgina (wife of Yiorgos), Nikina or Nikolakina (wife of Nikos), Kostena (wife of Kostas), Panayotena (wife of Panayiotis), Tasina (wife of Tasos), and Vasilina (wife of Vasilis). At times the feminine form of the husband's nickname is used if he is commonly referred to by the nickname rather than some form of the baptismal name. Finally, the full personal name is rarely used either in reference or address, but, as with ourselves, familiar shortened forms are employed, such as Kostas or Tasos instead of Konstantinos. The shortened form of the per- sonal name is invariably used by older persons in addressing younger ones. Younger men in addressing older ones use the personal name or the nickname if it is not derogatory and when there is no close kinship between them; other- wise a kinship term is employed. When the age or prestige difference is great, certain tkinship" terms of respect such as barba ("uncle") and papouli ("grandpa") may be used. Conclusion Some of the forms and functions of personal names and their relations to social behavior in a rural Greek community have been examined in this paper. To restate some of the major observations; personal names are involved in establishing the godparent relationship (koumbaria)--a form of fictive kin- ship which is one of the most significant coalitions outside of immediate kin- ship for the co-parents so engaged; the personal name being celebrated on namedays elicited visiting patterns unusual at any other time--patterns which we consider a mechanism furthering solidarity beyond the nuclear family in an essentially agonistic community. Furthermore, the names employed reflect a conceptual and behavioral separation of male and female spheres of action, in the prescriptive limits or variations allowedo Names, as the symbolic bearers of destiny, not only unite alternating generations but also unite particular individuals in characterological destinies. Other implications, when names 106 are chosen or avoided as responses to conflicts within the family or to marital residence were mentioned but not analyzed for lack of evidence. Those cases in which none of the male children were named for the HuFa (see Figure 2) vary from families with only one male child to one family with fourteen male children; the implications in the two cases are obviously quite different as, for one reason or another, there were sufficient cases of second, third. and even later male children given the HuFa name. These re- flect conflicts within the family resolved; the date which could confirm or refute this, unfortunately, was not elicited. The questions raised as to why the prescription in naming of the first-born for the paternal grandparents was not followed, therefore, remains unanswered, and the interesting problems regarding family conflict--also perhaps glimpsed in cases of surname changes-- remain unexplored. However, wider problems of theoretical relevance should be considered. Levi-Strauss (1962) has conclusively demonstrated that names, as linguistic categories, are systematic and provide insights into ideology and social organization. A relative lack of concern with personal names on anything more than an ethnographic level is only partially compensated for by articles by Beattie (1957), Nsimbi (1950), Middleton (1961), Goodenough (1965), Guemple (1965), Spender (1961), Rossi (1965), and a few others. Since names are generally assumed to be cultural, open to creative innovation, less systematic--if not unsystematic, and do not define role relations between per- sons, as opposed to kin terms, they were only considered as of passing inter- est, when considered at all. Certainly, the original insights of Rivers in advocating the genealog- ical method and of Kroeber in viewing kinship terminology as a linguistic category with systematic relations to social structure, have received consid- erable elaboration and sophistication in the past fifty years. The analysis of kinship terminology as a system with behavioral correlates has proven such a profitable vein for exploration that it now seems surprising that analogous insights regarding names, naming practices, and related social organization were not realized. The different conventions or modes of address which use personal names, teknonyms, and kinship terms to express differential respect, prestige, social status, and other values might have led, as they did recently by Levi-Strauss, to more systematic and comparative treatment than has actu- ally been the case. An example of two recent contributions which bear little resemblance to each other except that they deal with naming conventions willg I hope, suffice to support my contention that naming practices deserve greater atten- tion than they have received for the valuable ethnographic insights they provide on the social organization of particular societies and on their uni- versal significance as institutionalized expressions of ideology. In an article on saunik, a name-sharing convention among the Eskimo, Guemple notes the effect of naming on kinship terminology itself; the kinship terms used are "skewed" (his term) as the saunik convention mainly determines the kin terms used by the name-sharers and others related to them (1965). In compar- ing Truk and Lakalai, Goodenough claims that "In each society, naming customs 107 and modes of address appear to counterbalance the effect that the workings of the social system tend otherwise to give to people's images of themselves and of others." (1965:275). As valuable and central as studies of kinship terminology and rela- tional systems based on kinship will always be in social anthropology, we need not be myopic about the significance of all forms of naming for the indi- viduals, for the community, and analytically as part of wider patterns of designations and relations of significance theoretically to the anthropologist. ENDNOTES 1This is a revised verslon of a paper delivered at the Northeastern Anthropological Meetings at Amherst, Massachusetts, March, 1966. This revi- sion profited greatly from the comments of Mrs. Lila Leibowritz and Mr. Nat Raymond, my colleagues in the Department of Sociology-Anthropology at Nozrth- eastern University, Boston. This version profited from having read Levi- Strauss's La Pensee Sau (The Savage Mind, Chicago, University of Chicago, 1966) after the original presentation was made. 2 Although the idea for and the writing of this paper occurred after leaving the field, the observations and the partial statistical data are based on research in the village of Vergadi (pseudonym) in the province of Aigialeias in the northwestern corner of the Peloponnesos, Greece, during 1962-1963. This research was made possible by funds from the Research Center for Economic Development and Cultural Change for which I have Professor Bert Hoselitz to thank. 3The village is located in the foothills above the Aigion plain. Its population of 750 individuals consists of about 185 families all of whom pur- sue cultivation of grapes, olives, and mixed garden vegetables; a few are part-time craftsmen or shopkeepers. The village president, secretary, and priest are also farmers; only the doctor is a full-time specialist. Although the community is an old one, the village itself is only four or five genera- tions old, the community having transformed itself from a pastoral-mixed farm- ing way of life in the mountains to the present agricultural one during the last hundred years. REFERENCES BEATTIE, J. 1957 Nyoro personal names. The Uganda Journal 21. CAMPBELL, J. 1964 Honour, family and patronage. Oxford, Clarendon Press. FOSTER, GEORGE 1961 The dyadic contract: a model of the social structure of a Mexican peasant village. American Anthropologist 63:1173-1192. 1963 The dyadic contract in Tzintzuntzan, II: patron-client relation- ship. American Anthropologist 65:1280-1294. 108 GOODENOUGH, W. 1965 Personal names and modes of address in two oceanic societies. In Context and Meaning in Cultural Anthropology, Spire, ed. New York, The Free Press. GUEMPLE, D. 1965 L. Saunik: name sharing as a factor governing Eskimo kinship terms. Ethnology 4:323-335. LEVI-STRAUSS, C. 1966 The savage mind. 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