By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” These are Shakespeare’s memorable words which state, long before 20th century linguistics, that names do not have intrinsic meaning. They are merely used as labels or signs to refer to people. We cannot say that we understand the proper names, we can only say that we know their referents.
But names have connotations, which are the associations and feelings we nurture for a given name, and bring certain images of a person to our minds. For instance, when we choose Nabil, Saeed, or Karim, we hope that the positive connotations of these names would grant the child noble traits, a happy life, or generous qualities. Some people go too far and advocate that names destine people. Consequently, hunting a name with pleasing sounds for a baby is of paramount importance to parents.
Names largely reflect a person’s gender, ethnicity, and faith. They also indicate the sociocultural and psychological preferences of the time as well as the parents’ socioeconomic status. Names mark religious beliefs, remember seniors in the family, commemorate special occasions, refer to the surrounding environment, copy the names of celebrities of the time, or grant offsprings exotic, unique identity. The last two factors are believed to be the main motives for choosing the majority of names and boosting certain sounds.
Name sounds and fashion
Names have popularity cycle: they rise, reaching the peak, then fade away and make a comeback after two or three generations. Sounds of names are also influenced by fashion: they come and go. A look at a random sample of the trendy names in Egypt, shows that apart from the timeless names like Muhammad, Ahmed, Mahmoud, Ibrahim, etc., names ending in liquid sounds such as l, r, y, m and n are in fashion, and so are the vowel-ending female names. Names starting with a (Atheer), m (Maysam), n ( Naya), d (Darreen), r (Rode), s (Sana), t (Talia), and l (Lureen) ramain on the rise, while those with g, b, th, and f are declining.
Like parents in many cultures, Egyptian parents spend more time before picking a name for a baby girl than a baby boy. As a result, the top girl names in popularity charts are always in constant change, and the name pool of baby girls is much bigger and deeper as it is full of national and global names derived from diverse sources: religious texts, Classical Arabic, and lots of languages, especially, Turkish, Persian, Latin, English and Ancient Egyptian.
Sometimes a sound restructuring of some names helps them come back to fashion as in Nada from Nadia, Sama from Samia, Zina from Zinat, or deleting one of its sounds as in Sana, Hana and Fatma from Sanaa Hanaa, and Fatima respectively.
A tale of two geems
A current naming trend in Egypt is evident in the names with hard ‘g’ or the geem sound which turns into a soft ‘g’ as the fricative ‘j’ or the affricate ‘dj’. Example names undergoing this process are Khadija, Jalila, Jana, Ajwan, and Judy instead of Khadiga, Galila, Gana, Agwan, Gana, and Gudy. Historically, the ‘g’ pronunciation is the oldest in Arabic and other Semitic languages. Then it changes to ‘dj’ or ‘j’ in many areas before the Quran. The g pronunciation still prevails in many regions in Yemen and Oman as well as Egypt.
Reasons
Well, no single reason can be identified. However, sociolinguistics usually puts social acceptability, which creates fashion, language contact, the pursuit of novel or uncommon forms , and the distinctive features of sounds as the prime reasons.
Celebrities, real and fictional, usually provide inspiration for people looking for baby names. It is believed that the ‘j’ pronunciation of the previous names has been inspired by the Syrian Arabic names of the characters of the currently popular Turkish TV series.
Egyptian Arabic has served as the lingua franca of Pan Arabs due to Egypt’s cultural and political impact in the region. It used to be an active area of linguistic influence, rarely borrowing linguistic forms from other Arabic dialects. However, it is losing some of its momentum due to multiple reasons. One of them is the rise of Syrian and Lebanese dialects through the dubbed TV drama as well as the receding media space it is currently occupying. Social media, especially Instegram, naming and parenting websites, have also boosted the ‘dj’ or ‘j’ version names through constantly showering parents with name lists compiled from religious texts, Standard Arabic, and other languages. The lists go viral. In so doing, parents believe that the ‘j’ version of these names would project exclusivity and prestige onto their children.
Similarly, fashion affects the popularity of name sounds. They also come and go. For instance, ‘j’ names like Jennifer and George had been in fashion for decades before K names took over in popularity in the US. Jade is the third most trendy name in France this year, and is rocketing to the top names in Spain as well. It seems that ‘j’ enjoys wide acceptability globally. No wonder that Egyptians, bombarded by ‘j’ names from many languages, react the same.
Checking popular name lists in many countries shows that names are a site for language contact at its best. An increasing number of names in each list are not native or local, and they can work globally. Many social segments in Egypt are increasingly in direct contact with foreign languages at home through education and work and/or abroad. This definitely boosts the acceptability degree of j names.
In pursuit of novelty
The diffusion of jeem rather than geem versions of such female names could also be motivated by the instinctive human chasing of distinction and novelty. Khadeega, Galila, Gamila, Hagar, etc. are classic traditional names, commonly pronounced with the prestigious Cairene ‘g’. Shifting to ‘j’ pronunciation helps these names to make a comeback through sounding novel or less traditional. For a lot of parents, it is good to have a more exclusive or trendy name so that children grow up with a bit more individuality.
Finally, the previous reasons are by no means exclusive. And so far the ‘j’ pronunciation has not crept into the rest of g names. They still sound Egyptian. It seems that they would possibly continue to do so until less Egyptian-sounding versions take over. When it comes to naming trends, it is difficult to predict because when fashion does say, so many people obey.
By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban Professor of linguistics Faculty of Arts Kafr el-sheikh University
Email: [email protected]
