This Dangerous Bone Cannot Be Swallowed: Ethnopragmatic Significance of Religiously Based Personal Names Among Agwagune People

Abstract

This article examines the ethnopragmatic significance of religiously based personal names among the Agwagune people of Biase in Cross River State, Nigeria. Insights from a socio-onomastic framework are used to account for the situational, socioreligious and sociocultural contexts of Agwagune naming practices that reinforce the people’s belief systems and worldview. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, data were generated during a nine-month fieldwork session involving 30 participants who were knowledgeable in the traditional religious socio-onomastic tradition. Our findings show that Agwagune people draw from their symbolic linguistic resources to bestow personal names that become messaging instruments that express traditional religious affiliations, sociocultural practices and indigenous belief systems. The personal names bear ethnopragmatic relevance that manifests in the veneration of deities and traditional worship; significations in rituals and religious festivals; mysteries of death, reincarnation and commemoration; traditional familial hierarchies; and the sociocultural connection between the people and their physical and spiritual universe. Aside from contributing to the global discourses on socio-onomastics from the perspectives of a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group, the study is also relevant because it serves as documentary material for an endangered and transitioning socio-onomastic practice that characterizes the people’s cosmology, belief systems and lived experiences that are gradually being replaced by Christian orientations.

1. Introduction

Names are social emblems designed for and attached to every human irrespective of belief, gender, ethnic affiliation, nationality, cultural dynamics, personality characteristics or religious orientations (Oladunjoye and Adeyemi 2012). Naming is “a universal cultural practice, but how the names are bestowed, the practices and rituals involved, and the interpretation attached to the names differ from society to society, and from culture to culture” (Agyekum 2006, p. 211). Personal names define people across cultures, philosophies and religious affiliations. Personal names express and appraise the nature, essence, physiognomies, roles, and orientation of a person, in relation to the expectations and worldview of the name-givers (Echekwube 2005). On the functions of names, and particularly in African societies, Nkechi and Benjamin (2023, p. 318) argue that the meaning of a personal name “consists of one level of the deictic functions of ‘identifying’ the individual and further unravels long, complex, deeply felt narratives about aspirations of the name-bearers and name-givers.” Names are also cultural products that index ideologies, expectations, past and current events and circumstances, and worldviews (Mbarachi and Igwenyi 2018; Balogun and Fasanu 2019; Dautey 2025). This implies that personal names perform beyond mere identification functions, but extend to situate other complex narrations about the name-bearers and name-users; histories; individual, familial and communal experiences; ideologies; identities; and worldviews. Therefore, personal names are conceived differently across the globe depending on the philosophies of the name-bearers, name-givers and name-users. For instance, in (some) Western societies, names can be mere identification labels, but in many African cultures, names go beyond labels to embody loaded meanings and symbolic connotations, and exert enormous influence with reflections of a series of issues regarding the people’s different spheres of existence and experiences (Atel 2004; Olatunji et al. 2015; Mensah 2015, 2024a). In African naming cultures and traditional religious practices across time, personal names such as those in Yoruba in Southwest Nigeria, Akan in Ghana, Swahili in East Africa, Basotho in South Africa, and many other ethnic groups, are proverbial, sociocultural, a reality of social experience, religious, and are expressions of the physical and spiritual universe (Igboin 2014; Olatunji et al. 2015). Therefore, aside from personal names being intrinsically and extrinsically meaningful in African cultures, the personhood and the name one bears present the genealogical narration that contributes to establishing a connection in the chain of vital forces, an existing link connected by the top to the lineage of his ascending line, and supporting at the bottom the line of his descents that mark a unique individuality and family history (Olatunji et al. 2015; Pilcher 2017; Nkechi and Benjamin 2023). It is these ascending and descending family links that dominate the naming cultures of Africa, which reinforce the cosmologies of the people.

Naming is in language, and language is a sociopsychological phenomenon that expresses ideology, culture and other preferences. Central to naming practices in many cultures, and particularly in African communities, is naming in the indigenous language and belief systems. Indigenous language plays a vital role in situating the ethnolinguistic and sociocultural regions of the name-bearers, their linguistic culture, and by extension, the narrations of name-givers and name-users. On this, Mbarachi and Igwenyi (2018) (as cited in Nkechi and Benjamin 2023, p. 314) posit that personal names and naming practices are “cultural constructs of identifying a person through the employment of the cultural strategies in the given society and its realization through the language they speak.” Personal names strengthen the relationship between language and culture as indivisible components; that is, while culture embodies language in its performance and transgenerational transmission, language is used to express culture, particularly where the names are geographically and socioculturally derived (Mensah and Rowan 2019). The authors emphasize that African socio-onomastic systems provide fertile grounds for the intersection of language, culture, religion, belief systems and the ideologies the name-bearers and name-givers profess. Religion, and particularly African traditional religious practices, employ indigenous language to venerate deities and their physical and spiritual worlds.

The focus of the current study is the ethnopragmatic significance of traditional religiously based personal names among Agwagune people in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. The motivation is anchored on the fact that Agwagune socio-onomastic system has not been investigated (in any perspectives) to situate findings that reveal the uniqueness of the people’s value system, traditional religious practices and cosmology as exemplified in the personal names and naming practices expressed in indigenous forms (that is, non-foreign linguistic culture and beliefs). The present study is construed to fill this research gap and provide a broadening knowledge on Agwagune religious naming system to demonstrate the interconnectedness between personal names, African traditional religions, religious ideologies and the linguistic culture of the people. The authors believe that the outcomes will add to the widening discourses on socio-onomastics (expressed in indigenous forms), particularly from Agwagune, which is a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group. The relevance of the study is anchored on its exploration of a category of personal names that is gradually being endangered because of the ageing population of the name-bearers. The present study will therefore serve as reference material for transgenerational preservation of a naming culture that is currently being resisted by the younger population of Agwagune people, who hold the view that the ideologies and identities conveyed through the names are idolatrous and against their Christian orientations.

1.1. Agwagune People and Their Worldview

Agwagune is a common name for the language and people seen as a micro-minority ethnolinguistic group in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. The people settle at the eastern flanks of Cross River, measuring over 120 kilometres North of Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, with three villages (Odum Ugom, Inuk and Okurike) and one political ward (Inyang 2002, 2007; Uwen and Egbung 2026). The three villages of Agwagune have families or lineages with households occupying defined and definite homes with physical boundaries that establish demarcations among families from different matrilineal and patrilineal lineages. The Agwagune language belongs to the Benue-Congo phylum of the Western subgroup of the Upper Cross River languages spoken in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria (Ugot 2013, 2014; Uwen and Egbung 2026). The people are predominantly farmers, fishermen, petty traders, and palm wine tappers and operate a patrilineal system where the men are traditionally conferred with the power to supervise traditional practices and bestow personal names on their children (Inyang 2023; Uwen and Ukam 2024; Uwen and Egbung 2026). The patriarchal system allows men to bestow names on children, and such names are derived from what they do for a living, their spiritual and physical environments, their conceptualization of death and reincarnation, communal events, days of their markets, traditions and festivals, and other activities that relate to their traditional religious practices. Uwen and Egbung (2026) state that the Agwagune people have rich cultural practices and seasonal festivals that are regulated by the traditional calendar, which is related to their worldview and devotion to African traditional religions. The authors add that, like the Erei people, Agwagune operate a four-day market week system where they buy and sell goods and agricultural produce as well as attend to other traditional events that are structured based on the age bracket and gender of the participants.

In the religious spheres, the Agwagune people practice African traditional religion and Christianity, and the latter is fast engulfing the younger population. In spite of the emergence of Christianity and its increasing number of adherents, the people still worship deities and perform traditional rituals. The people somehow have confidence that their physical and spiritual affairs in terms of their overall wellbeing is determined by the deities from whom they seek mediation using diviners to avert individual and communal calamity. The people venerate and appease the idols for victory during intercommunal wars and wrestling contests, fertility and procreation, individual and communal affluence, bumper harvest, wrestling might, longevity, and as a shield from marine spirits and witchcraft (Uwen and Ukam 2024; Uwen and Egbung 2026). Inyang (2007) (as cited in Uwen and Egbung 2026) affirms that before the coming of the British and missionaries, the traditional practices performed by fetish cults had a dominating influence on the values, sociocultural and belief system of the people. The Agwagune traditional belief system, which shows enormous influence on the people’s socio-onomastic tradition, is being gradually weakened by emerging Christian religious beliefs and orientations propagated predominantly by the younger generation. This situation portends danger to Agwagune traditional religiously based personal names, whose bearers are currently among the ageing population. The implication is that without appropriate documentation and reference material (which the current study strives to serve), this category of personal names and the memories of them will become extinct in the coming decades.

1.2. Previous Studies on African Traditional Religion-Based Personal Names

Since Agwagune is a micro-minority in Africa, the review of previous studies on naming cultures was derived from African traditional religious practices. Names are place, individual, communal and religious identities. Bell (2009) (as cited in Mensah 2024a, p. 13) defines religious identity as “the way that an individual relates to a transcendent being and/or to a sociocultural group which is predominantly characterized by a transcendent object.” Such identities describe how people understand themselves, their spiritual worldview and other metaphysical beliefs, which are often reconstructed in traditional religiously based personal names. Studies have also shown that name-givers deliberately give religiously based personal names to newborns to reinforce their traditional religious beliefs, practices and indoctrinations as devotees of African traditional religions represented by deities and other religious symbols (Atel 2004; Godson and Igodo 2020; Mensah 2015, 2024b; Uwen and Ukam 2024). The names in such circumstances become emblematic instruments for reconstructing the people’s traditional religious identities embedded in their transgenerational socio-onomastic traditions. Mensah (2024a) asserts that religiously based personal names have strong symbolic associations between the name-givers and their belief systems, and such names become a platform where religious adherents can initiate transcendental communication with spiritual and supernatural forces to create connection and psychological unity. Traditional religiously based personal names have religious implications on the people’s inclinations, religious beliefs and the deities they venerate (Udechukwu and Nnyigide 2016). This set of socio-onomastic traditions helps to situate the name-bearers and name-givers’ expression of their worldviews and cosmologies.

African traditional religious worship and the belief systems are often reflected in their naming cultures and personal names. Madu (1997) asserts that, in African traditional settings, the totality of existence in a man’s world includes the Supreme God, small gods and goddesses, deities, spirits, ancestors, sacred entities, and the existence of profane places, which establish African worldviews and naming cultures that are traditionally religiously based. For instance, some African communities’ veneration of the spirit world and the supernatural force it exercises is reflected in the personal names they bestow on children, especially to prevent death caused by spirit beings (Obeng 1998; Agyekum 2006). Again, Madu (2004) maintains that many Africans bestow personal names on their progenies to engage in vocal dialogue for interventions that address their spiritual concerns, and to maintain cosmic balance and equilibrium that is self-fulfilling. Such names are derived from many Africans’ believe in the physical and spiritual universe that coordinates and regulates the existence and wellbeing of human beings. Olatunji et al. (2015) posit that in African spirituality, a name bestowed on a child goes beyond the physical person to reflect the soul and connects with the spirit and spiritual universe, where the people believe there is another layer of existence. This category of names is symbolic recognition and appeal to spiritual beings for the continuity of human existence and their dwelling in the physical world. Also, it is revealed that among the Yoruba in Nigeria, names are bestowed to reflect the religious beliefs of the family or community, and among the Akan people in Ghana, children are named after family deities (Yusuf et al. 2014). Names in this order serve to transmit familial traditional religious practices and the deities they revere.

In Nigeria, Egbung and Akpagu (2019) argue that personal names negotiate cultural identity. Mensah (2024a) attests that among the Tiv people, reincarnation and immortalization names are bestowed on children whose parents, grandparents or other ancestors are believed to have transmigrated into the newborn to resonate their tradition religious beliefs on the continuous link between the living and the dead. This implicates the name-givers’ beliefs in the transmigration of the human body, spirit and soul. Also, among the Nsukka people in Southeast Nigeria, Agbo et al. (2022) argue that their personal names are drawn from deified entities in the physical environment, such as rivers, mountains and other sites, to account for their deification and the conservation of the environment. Udechukwu and Nnyigide (2016) corroborate that the Igbo naming system indicates their traditional religious beliefs, which have implications for their sociocultural environment. Again, Odesanya et al. (2017) posit that the Yoruba Ifa-based traditional religious personal names and naming culture involve a divinatory process followed as a pathway to revealing deeper-level messages conveyed to the name-bearer and name-givers within their beliefs in the deity. For the Annang people in Ikot Ekpene, Umoren (1988) claims that their personal names suggest how the sacred and profane mediate to enunciate their beliefs in deities and spiritual beings. Among Erei people, personal names employ symbolic dialectal resources to express and perform ideologies that are ingrained in the traditional religion’s foundations and sociocultural practices that represent the people’s belief systems, lived experiences and spiritual worldview (Uwen and Ekpang 2022; Uwen and Egbung 2026). Studies on the Agwagune have been focused on seasonal ceremonies, the place of women in cultural and ritual performance, ethnopragmatic significations of their dirge, hierarchical structuring of traditional leadership, language contact and nominal plurality (Inyang 2002, 2007, 2023; Iyam 2021; Ugot 2013, 2014; Uwen and Egbung 2026). Researchers have yet to engage with the socio-onomastic tradition of the Agwagune, and particularly the category of personal names that conceptualizes African traditional religious practices in the veneration of their physical and spiritual worlds. The current study employs indigenous linguistic resources to narrate their worldview as articulated in their personal names.

2. Theoretical Framework

The relevant theorization for this study is the socio-onomastic framework. The socio-onomastic framework emerges from the interface between sociolinguistics and onomastics as a means to serve the inquiry into the social origin and use of names, and naming traditions of a people within given situations and contexts across time and cultures (Walther 1971). Broadly speaking, the theory “draws from history, sociolinguistics, anthropology, ethnopragmatics, sociology and cultural studies to engage different dialogues on names and naming systems to interpret the ethnopsychology of the people and the ethnopragmatic functions of names in the sociocultural context” (Uwen and Ukam 2024, p. 3). Socio-onomastics merges and connects with other disciplines to explicate the perceptive and social concerns of naming systems, and to explain personal names as narratives of sociocultural values and sociohistorical backgrounds of a people. The tenets of the framework are considered to examine the sociocultural origin and variations in names and naming across cultures, situations and contexts by situating the use and variations in names as a product of the language and culture of a people. Socio-onomastics interrogates the social, contextual, cultural and situational perspectives of names, their use and the roles names perform within the philosophies of the name-bearers, name-givers and name-users (Ramaeba 2020; Dautey 2025). The conceptualization of socio-onomastics also employs a sociological perspective to discuss personal names as a course of social action that further explains the various contexts of name bestowal, their meanings and interpretations within a given society and culture (Nicolaisen 1985; Leslie and Skipper 1990; Ainiala and Ostman 2017). The framework builds its strengths on its social, cultural and situational accounts of names and naming systems, since contexts situate the variations, attitudes to names, naming practices and the internal connections between the ethnopragmatic elements and their relevance in a name. Names are outcomes of the interactions between language, culture, environments and the society in which they exist, as they construct individual and communal identities from historical and sociocultural perspectives (Nicolaisen 1985). This theorization, therefore, provides an appropriate framework for the analysis of the variations that occur in personal names arising from dominant factors and contexts. In other studies, insights from socio-onomastic theory are utilized in investigating the social significance of Yoruba personal names, the linguistic patterning of Bassa personal names, the conceptualization of Chi-personal names among Igbo Christians and the religious identity performance in Erei personal names (Ikotun 2010; Imoh 2018; Uwen and Ukaegbu 2024; Uwen and Ukam 2024). Insights from socio-onomastic theory are therefore relevant to this study as they will be utilized to examine how personal names connect with the Agwagune people’s traditional religious beliefs and practices that express their worldview, lived experiences and expectations.

3. Materials and Methods

We conducted ethnographic research (using the qualitative approach) during a nine-month period of fieldwork sessions. A total of 42 participants were consulted, but only 30 who gave informed consent to participate were recruited for the study. Particularly, participants’ willingness to participate, in-depth knowledge of the ethnopragmatic relevance of Agwagune names, and the participants whose ages ranged from 50 to 75 years formed the criteria for the selection of participants who were among the name-givers, name-bearers and name-users. The gender distribution of participants comprises 22 (73%) males and eight (27%) females. The higher number of male participants correlates with the patriarchal system practiced among the Agwagune people that places the custody of their culture and tradition with men. This practice extends the prerogative of naming children with male adults (fathers, husbands and elders) in addition to the regular performance of traditional rituals. The age range aligned with the ageing subpopulation of traditional religion-based name-bearers and name-givers that were well-informed of the psychoreligious situations that enthused the bestowal of religiously based names. This is in addition to the fact that the younger population of Agwagune is having a new idealization of personal names that profess their new beliefs in Christianity. Also, of the 30 participants, 25 were devotees to the traditional religion (83%), while five (17%) were initial traditional deity worshippers who converted to Christianity. This distribution allowed for the elicitation of robust information on how immersed the people were in religiously based socio-onomastic tradition and the emerging negative attitudes towards the personal names from name-bearers whose conversion to Christianity has offered them new orientations and ideologies.

The study adopted two ethnographic methods of data collection: participant observation and semi-structured interviews, complemented with audiotape recording and field notes. The participant-observation technique enabled the authors (who are also indigenes of the research area) to assume the dual positionalities of researchers and passive participants in all the situations that informed the bestowal and usage of the African traditions-based personal names. As indigenes, the authors were among the subpopulation that provided the data because they had free access to all communal events to which the personal names were socioreligiously situated. This insider status removed unnecessary constraints and expanded occasions for participation that deepened the authors’ understanding of the religious contexts of the names. The semi-structured interview enabled the authors to front probing questions on the sources of the names, the circumstantial motivations for their bestowals, the sociocultural and socioreligious implications for the name-givers and name-bearers, and their ethnopragmatic relevance and their relationship with African traditional beliefs. The responses from the participants suggested whether they could be asked follow-up questions or required modifications to or reframing of questions. This situation enabled participants to communicate the appropriate conceptualization of the personal names and the sociopsychological impulses of the name-givers and name-bearers. The audiotape recording and field notes provided complementing information that strengthened and validated what was derived from observations and interviews. The relevant data were then coded into appropriate themes, reviewed and harmonized to avoid overlapping of meanings. The data were further translated and transcribed for analysis. A descriptive approach was deployed for data interpretation and discussion of the ethnopragmatic relevance of 50 Agwagune personal names within the people’s worldview and African religious conceptualizations.

4. Results and Discussion

The analysis and discussion follow the descriptive method, which allows data to be interpreted based on the opinions of the participants drawn from the personal names. To demonstrate this, five subheadings categorizing the themes are discussed to establish the long bestowal and use of Agwagune personal names that are related to African traditional worship. It is important to note that the personal names and elements in the indigenous language are italicized in the discussion sections as presented below.

4.1. Death-Prevention Personal Names

The representation of people’s conceptualization of death is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Also, aspects of the Agwagune people’s cosmology reflect their beliefs in the mystery of death and the co-existence of spiritual beings that inhabit among the living, and the beliefs regulate the people’s conceptualization of death as a transition and connection between the living and their ancestors (Uwen and Ukam 2024; Uwen and Egbung 2026). These beliefs informed the people’s accommodation of death-prevention personal names within their socio-onomastic tradition. Such personal are shown in

Table 1. Death-prevention personal names.

Names	Meaning
Úgúmarím	This dangerous bone cannot be swallowed
Égwá	Breathe/Untouchable
Íyàm	This one belongs to me (It is mine)
Igémi	One that is not loved
Ọdimégwá	An aged woman
Ùgọt	Poverty
Úbù	Corpse
Útèré	Vulture
Ibé	Death
Ọvènerè	Nothing weighs me down (Nothing has happened)

below.

In Table 1 above, a participant (Ódidí: male 73) informed us that the names Úgúmarím (This dangerous bone cannot be swallowed), Égwá (Breathe/Untouchable), and Íyàm (This one belongs to me) are significations for guard and protection against death. Ódidí narrated that he bestowed Úgúmarím on his son after the agonizing loss of his two children in mysterious circumstances believed to be manipulated by spiritual forces. He added that this dangerous bone is a metaphoric representation of defence against death personified as an animate being that can no longer ‘swallow’ the child as it did to the two dead children. We also observed that Égwá and Íyàm suggest protective measures against attacks from the forces of death, just as one guards his precious property against forces that attempt to steal one’s belongings. Also, Igémi (One that is not loved), Ọdimégwá (An aged woman), Ùgọt (Poverty), Úbù (Corpse) and Útèré (Vulture) are another set of death-prevention names bestowed on children to distract death from attacking them. Another participant (Ámissiné: male 65) told us that such names are associated with derogatory elements and conditions that one will naturally not be willing to identify with. While analyzing the names, Ámissiné informed us that within the traditional belief system in the Agwagune, people may be hated for genuine reasons: an aged woman is completely drained of youthfulness, beauty and attraction; poverty is a despised condition that restricts one from accessing basic needs; and corpse is a condition of lifelessness, an end to a phase and is often left for the immediate family to be attended to. The names are therefore despicable and unattractive. We also observed that Útèré in the traditions of the people is an ugly, filthy and distasteful bird associated with evil omens, conceived with negative perceptions related to witchcraft and only useful for magico-traditional medicine. Within the period of the fieldwork, we observed that children ran from the sight of vultures to demonstrate the people’s attitudes towards them. Participants informed us that parents whose children bear the names listed above have had horrible experiences of infant mortality and only used the names as a rebuttal to possible recurrence. This set of names appears to cut across African socio-onomastic traditions. For instance, among the Akan people in Ghana, such unattractive personal names like Kaya (Carrier of loads), Abirekyie (Goat) and Sumina (Garbage) are meant to discourage the forces of death and make it so that the spirits of the underworld do not see the child as theirs (Agyekum 2006). The commonization and derogation of the names are believed to be an intentional mechanism to weaken death in the spirit world and cause it not to unleash its wrath on the infants.

Again, Ibé (Death) and Ọvènerè (Nothing weighs me down) are paradoxical declarations that death is not a conqueror. Another participant (Ọgàmá: female 55) reported that Ibé connotes a spiritual covenant to live and resonates with the naming culture of the people. Naming the child after death implies that they have become friends, which connotes that death cannot kill itself. Ọgàmá added that Ọvènerè is an expression of faith and a psychological coping strategy to bear the burden death has placed on the name-givers. The names, aside from conveying affronts against infant mortality to express longevity, become pleas to the physical and spiritual worlds that death allow the name-bearers to live. Such names are also prevalent among the Yoruba, where Ikunníafayi (Death do not take this), Kokumo (He will not die again) and Durójaiye (Do not die so that you can enjoy life) become plea mechanisms against the spirit and forces of death (Obeng 1998; Olatunji et al. 2015). A participant (Ágámgbọ: male 67) also reported that this set of personal names is a narration of the parents’ agonizing experience of infant mortality, to recognize superior forces that determine life and death, and a further interrogation of the certainty of death and temporality of life. According to the participant, the names console the name-givers and provide spatio-temporal psychological relief to establish the hope that the name-bearer will live. Drawing from Christian orientations, a participant (JénỌbázi: female 50) contradicted this set of names while affirming that bearing such names like Ùgọt, Úbù, Útèré and Ibé could spell doom for the innocent name-bearer. JénỌbázi, who is now of the Christian faith, agitated for a shift to the naming system to one that propagates Christian beliefs, doctrines and ideologies. Drawing on insights from the socio-onomastic framework, one could deduce that this set of personal names narrates the social, cultural and situational accounts rooted in the people’s traditional religious practices and belief systems to establish their ethnopragmatic relevance.

4.2. Personal Names Related to Reincarnation

Closely related to aspects of the traditional conception of death is the Agwagune people’s belief in reincarnation. Mensah (2024a, p. 15) posits that reincarnation “is the cyclical nature of human life which allows a soul to return, and is prevalent among other tribes in Nigeria like Yoruba (Ábíkù), Igbo (Ógbánjé), Efik (Èkà-Ábàsí) and Ibibio (Ésén émànà).” The author adds that the name-givers often allude to the physical resemblance, other physical attributes or behavioural traits that connect with the ancestors who have transmigrated. The Agwagune personal names that convey similar meanings within their conceptualization of reincarnation are represented in

Table 2. Personal names related to incarnation.

Names	Meaning
Ákàsè	The mother of her father
Ákèódidí	The mother of Ódidí
Ùnúnó	Uno has returned
Èmàrá	He/she has come back
Ífúniajé	I/We have come back
Négáni	He/she is not offended
Ójé	Going and coming

below.

In Table 2 above, participant (Ódidí: male 65) told us that Ákàsè (The mother of her father), Ákèódidí (The mother of Ódidí and Ùnúnó (Ùnó has returned) are personal names that have direct mention of the (great)grandparents who have transmigrated through the newborn, identified as the late grandmother of the name-bearer (Ákàsè), the late mother of Ódidí (the late grandmother of the child) and Ùnó (one of the male ancestors who has returned). The participant added that Ùnúnó resonates with the people’s religious consciousness that death is a journey where the dead migrate to the spirit world of the ancestors and later transmigrate to the physical universe through the newborn. This set of personal names cut across other ethnocultural groups in Nigeria, particularly in the Edo and the Yoruba, where Iye (Mother) and Iyorre (I have gone and come back) in the Edo, and Babatunde (Father has come back), Iyabode (Mother has come back) and Iyewande (My mother comes back for me) in the Yoruba are bestowed on children to establish a transgenerational connection and continuity of life after death (Bradbury 1973; Olatunji et al. 2015). We observed that Èmàrá (He/she has come back) is bestowed on a child who shows physical and behavioural resemblance to an ancestor, while Ífúniajé (I/We have come back) is bestowed mostly on twins to denote a symbolic message to the household that one of their ancestors has transmigrated. For Négáni (He/she is not offended), we were informed that the name is bestowed on a transmigrated being whose relatives offended him/her in the life before the present; it is also a plea to the child to forgive the parents and/or relatives for any prior ill-treatment. Godson and Igodo (2020) corroborate that the Igbo people also believe that life exists before the natural birth of a child, suggesting the pre-existence of souls in the physical world and as ancestors in the afterlife to establish dual spheres of existence in the physical and spiritual universe. Also, the traditional motivations for bestowing Ójé (Going and coming) on children relate to similar perceptions on why the Yoruba and Igbo bestow Ábíkù and Ógbánjé on newborns. Bringing insights on similar names among the Erei people, Uwen and Ukam (2024) further state that names like Ónyèné (Coming and going), Ọsé (Moving about), and Ọsusé (One who goes and comes around) bear analogous ethnopragmatic and sociocultural significance related to reincarnation, the cyclical nature of life and the pains associated with infant deaths witnessed by parents. The authors argue that children who were born after such repeated incidences are given such names to renew the parents’ and the communal ethnopsychological realization of the temporality of such children, as such names are sociocognitively considered to symbolically convey infamy and guilt onto the name-bearers in order to ‘trick’ them to stay alive. Another participant (Èdọdi: 61 male) narrated that such names are used to immortalize the ancestors as a sort of commemoration, remembrance, veneration and expression of the legacies and social virtues of the grandparents. The participant revealed that there is a unified continuous connection between the living and the dead that is often mediated by local diviners (Ọbọbọghó), who perform certain rituals for transcendental communication with the spiritual universe to allow such children to live. Insights from socio-onomastics are useful here as they help to account for the naming system that situates the traditional contexts that instantiate the ethnopragmatic relevance of the personal names within the cosmology of the Agwagune people.

4.3. Personal Names Related to the Physical Environment

Another category of personal names in the Agwagune is the set that instantiates the people’s connection with their physical environment, as they depend on it for survival, sustenance and performance of a series of traditional religious rituals. Wolmer (2007) (as cited in Uwen and Ukam 2024) argues that people and their physical environment bear a symbiotic relationship that exemplifies their physical and spiritual essence within the sociocultural, economic and traditional religious worldviews of the people. This interdependence manifests in the socio-onomastic tradition of the Agwagune people as shown in the personal names in

Table 3. Personal names related to the physical environment.

Names	Meaning
Ézibá	Land
Ésú	Medicinal plant
Íkọngó	Leaves/Herbs
Égọt	Bush
Ọdúm	Forest
Ọgbódím	Very thick forest
Úsétú	The road
Úsọ	Village square
Ákú-ugóm	Large compound/lineage
Édọk	Yam
Évók	Monkey
Itèré	Palm front
Ínyáng	River

below.

Ézibá (Land) represents the foundation for sustenance and reproductive lines of the people, and plants and animals in the physical environment. Apart from serving as the source of agricultural produce to feed the people, a participant (Íyàm: male 65) related that Ézibá—the receptor of all libation rituals to mediate with the gods and ancestors performed on the land—and the name-bearer serve as a re-enactment of the ethnopragmatic relevance of land to the people. For Ésú (Medicinal plant), Íkọngó (Leaves/Herbs) and Égọt (Bush), Íyàm stressed that the names serve as transgenerational transfer (of the importance) of indigenous knowledge of traditional medicine. The participant added that such names are bestowed on children who were cured from deadly diseases after their parents or local diviners (Ọbọbọghó) administered herbal medicine. We observed that Ọdúm (Forest) and Ọgbódím (Very thick forest) bear multiple significations within the worldview of the Agwagune people. Apart from depending on the forest’s products for timber, as a source of food and traditional medicine, the forests are communal sites for ritual performance, cult initiation and the burial ground for those who died in a manner considered as ‘bad death’. Many rituals for male initiation to adulthood, Ábú (male cult), and other rituals to announce the commencement of certain traditional festivals are performed in the forest. The personal names in this order become transmitting devices of the people’s spirituality, survival and creating awareness on the gains derived from forest conservation and preservation. In this regard, Mensah (2025, p. 202) asserts that “cultural resources of personal naming practices are employed to create awareness, promote environmental resilience and minimize the repletion of natural resources such as forests, farms, hunting grounds, and fishing waters.” The author stresses that such names are bestowed as intervention measures to ensure that people operate within the fringes of ecological borders in order to protect and preserve the physical environment and its habitats. Some participants informed us that Úsétú (The road), Úsọ (Village square) and Ákú-ugóm (Large compound/lineage) bear familial and communal significance. Within the cosmic notion of the people, Úsétú signifies the pathway, torchbearer and leadership. At the community level, the pathway leads to farmlands, a source of water and livelihood, and sites for ritual performance and traditional religious activities. At the family space, the name is the frontliner among siblings, and because the Agwagune operate a patriarchal structure, Úsétú (restricted for male children) plays prominent and traditionally power-wielding roles in the family, especially in polygamous homes. Ákú-ugóm (Large compound/lineage) is bestowed on children to reconstruct the patrilineal genealogy of the name-bearer, the exploits of the ancestors, and the heroic deeds that remain familial markers.

Again, Édọk (Yam) is bestowed on children in reverence to the crop, for its multiple significance. It is considered the ‘king crop’ that is annually celebrated in a communal yam festival that integrates the culinary, sociocultural, economic and religious relevance of the crop. Edem (2024) corroborates that yam is highly celebrated, and new yam in Biase (a Local Government Area where the Agwagune is one of the communities) is a sociocultural and religious platform for nurturing social cohesion, unity, peaceful co-existence and an opportunity to perform rituals to venerate the gods for a successful farming season and plenteous harvest. Participants reported that yam is revered among the people, and the festival (usually in the month of September) for the crop is a congregation of the entire people, where their worldview is rehearsed through cultural and ritual performances, dining and wining, and the exchange of yams and local delicacies. Also, Évók (Monkey) is bestowed on children for a number of reasons. We observed that, aside from naming children to reinstate the qualities of the monkey (cleverness, agility and responsiveness) and to preserve its existence, the Agwagune people have a culture of revering and conserving totemic creatures (including monkeys) considered to be sacred because of their historical, ecological and traditional religious roles that connect to the existence of the people and the deities they represent. On the representation of names of animals in African socio-onomastics, Mensah (2015) clarifies that such names are emblematic in the African worldview because of their unique qualities, traditional relevance, and expectations from the name-bearers, and, depending on their unusual features, parents bestow such names on children to replicate the creature’s characteristics such as bravery, ferociousness, power, speed and harmlessness, among others. Another participant (ỌdímỌgbán: male 53) told us that Itèré (Palm front) is given to newborns to recount the socioeconomic and religious relevance of the palm front to the Agwagune people. The participant stated that apart from being used for local brooms, it serves for various traditional religious practices, such as an instrument for the traditional injunction on disputed lands or property, a symbol for rituals by Ábú cult members, restriction of movement, and a sign for danger and declaration of intercommunal war. We observed that Ínyáng (River) is symbolic of the people’s social and spiritual connection to the river that runs through the three communities of Agwagune. The people depend on the river for fishing, fairs and performance of religious festivals, spiritual decontamination, regeneration and performance of sacrifices to appease the water goddess from unleashing its wrath on the people. There is cross-cultural knowledge regarding the religious and spiritual relevance of the river, as Uwen and Ukam (2024) have substantiated that the magical qualities of the river allow for the invocation of spirits, remain as a source of enchanted power from aquatic spirits and allow for mediation with aquatic gods and goddesses. Agbo et al. (2022) add that children are named after sites such as specific mountains, rivers and so on, in order to deify, eulogize and conserve the environment. We observed that there is a closefisted relationship between the people, traditional religious practices, and the physical and spiritual environments, and that the veneration of these entities through personal names helps to transmit transgenerational relevance of the people’s cosmology and indigenous knowledge to the younger generation. The tenets of socio-onomastics are applied here because the naming system helps to infer the ethnopsychology of the people in name-bearing and the ethnopragmatic meanings of the names within the socioreligious setting.

4.4. Personal Names Derived from Traditional Deity Worship

The adoration of deities through Agwagune personal names relates to the migration history and final occupation of the people at the current site. The people relied on the gods for successful migration, settlement, peaceful co-existence and social cohesion. Commenting on African cosmology and the worship of idols, Mbiti (1975) states that many Africans view deities (often sheltered and protected in shrines) as primordial divinities and spirit beings that mediate people, other beings and the ancestors. Such Agwagune personal names that connect with traditional deity worship are in

Table 4. Personal names derived from traditional deity worship.

Names	Meaning
Érót	Deity
Ábú	Male cult
Égíp	Female cult
Ámrè(-Étábi)	War goddess
Ngwú	Shrine/War goddess
Nkánú/Nkámànú	Personal/patrilineal god
Ísámó	Symbolic staff used by women for new yam festival

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In Table 4 above, Érót (Deity) is a name that signifies the communal reverence of their idols (gods and goddesses), believed to be guardians of the people in the physical and spiritual universe. Ábú (Male cult) is bestowed on male children as a symbol of spiritual transmigration of the traits of masculinity, perseverance and gallantry on the name-bearer. A participant (Ébók: male 60) narrated that the Erei people (also in Biase) practice a similar culture and initiation that involves a series of physical and spiritual events and sacrifices to transform children into adulthood and ripen them to cultural privileges preserved for men. Another participant (Igémi: female 56) acknowledged the role of Ábú in the sociocultural structuring of the Agwagune people. The participant quipped that the cult is gendered and alienates women who are often barred from seeing their ritual performances. Igémi stressed that recent agitations by the community’s women have not only curtailed the excesses of the male cult group and restricted their activities to Ábú forest, but have also resulted in weakening the grasp of the cult in the social reordering of the Agwagune people. On Égíp (Female cult), Igémi told us that the name is bestowed on female children to express the significance of femininity and motherhood. We observed that unlike the Ábú, which is associated with ritual practices and the restriction of women from seeing their performances, Égíp has limited ritual performances, and men are not barred from the sight of such performances. We also observed that Ámrè(-Étábi (War goddess) and Ngwú (Shrine/War goddess) are personal names that bear cultural reflections of communal might to overwhelm any invasion. We were told that such goddesses were consulted and taken to battlegrounds for the protection and victory of the Agwagune warriors. The names recount the deities’ cultural and religious relevance to the existence of the people. Nkánú/Nkámànú (Personal/patrilineal god) is named for the continuity of a particular patrilineal lineage. It is represented by a life tree often planted and nurtured by different lineages as a means of dialoguing with their ancestors through periodic sacrifices and rituals. On this, Ifesieh (1989) claims that man is a religious being and looks up to his ontological source to dialogue with the physical and spiritual climes. On Ísámó (Symbolic staff used by women during new yam festival), a participant (Ítáng: female 59) narrated that the staff bears a symbolic connection with rituals, femininity and adornment. The participant claimed that the decorated staff is used to revere the goddess of fertility and reconstructs the place of women in recreation and the regeneration of life. Ítáng added that the staff is an obligatory requirement in the series of cultural and religious performances during new yam festivals, and by extension, it becomes a symbolic instrument to address gender imbalances in the sociocultural structuring of the people. Bearing deity-related personal names cuts across cultures in Nigeria. For instance, among Edo people, personal names like Erinwingbovo (The spirit beings are not envious of humans), Osarodun (Deity is the eldest), Okungbowa (Water god gives wealth) and Osunbunmi (Gift from osun) resonate the veneration of deities and the reflections of their qualities on the name-bearers (Bradbury 1973; Olatunji et al. 2015). Among the Agwagune people, we particularly observed that children named after deities are commemorative instruments of the gods, having been consulted by their parents ahead of the emergence of the newborn, or in other instances where such births coincide with the performance of rituals related to the particular deity. However, a participant (Ùnáni: male 51) cautioned on the continuous propagation of idolatrous names that connect the name-bearers with gods and goddesses. Ùnáni claimed that his recent conversion to Christianity has given him a better understanding of the spiritual effects of bearing names that eulogize deities and the harm they could do to the name-bearers. Generally, socio-onomastics is relevant here as it explains the personal names in this category as narratives of sociohistorical and socioreligious experiences of a people and how they dialogue with the spiritual universe using the deities as transcendental instruments.

4.5. Personal Names Related to Other Traditional Religious Practices

The last set of personal names deals with different spheres of traditional religious practices concerning kingship, affluence, gallantry, and the time and day of birth, as indicated in

Table 5. Personal names related to other traditional religious practices.

Names	Meaning
Ékò(ọkpá)	Lineage of royalty
Ọnún	King/kingship
Étábi	Kingmaker
Ùkpúhá	Money
Égọí	Wealth
Íbàrékpó	Founder of Agwagune
Ágámgbó	Warlord
Éffimé	Physical strength
Úkóng	Very strongman/Wrestler
Ítáng	A Courageous woman
Ídàngá	A proud woman
Ízún	Night/Darkness
Áffiá	Market day

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On personal names that relate to a king and kingship lineage as shown in Table 5 above, a participant (Ékò: male 75) recounted that Ékò(ọkpá) (Lineage of royalty), Ọnún (King/kingship) and Étábi (Kingmaker) are lineage names restrictively bestowed on children born into the royal families. Ékò narrated that in Agwagune kinship ties, there are traditionally exclusive royal families who are allowed to bear such names associated with royalty and enthronement of kings. The participant added that kingship in the people’s culture is hereditary and restricted to specific lineages, and there are dire consequences when a member of a non-royal lineage attempts to be enthroned as king. We observed that the people have this indigenous knowledge and are conscious of practicing the dictates of the traditions to avert the wrath of the gods, and that the names are religious emblems because of the rituals performed by the name-bearers before and during their reign. We observed that Ùkpúhá (Money) and Égọí (Wealth) fall within the category of personal names bestowed on children to prompt the name-bearer and parents’ consciousness of the legitimacy of money and wealth obtained through genuine means. The names also re-enact the relevance of money and wealth in the traditional stratification and sociocultural relevance in the Agwagune, where people are somehow rated on the basis of the traditional titles they acquire through the philanthropic use of their wealth. This category of names connects with traditional religions because most ritual sacrifices of the Agwagune are performed with a specific amount of money. Another participant (Éjémót: male 70) revealed that Íbàrékpó (Founder of Agwagune) and Ágámgbó (Warlord) are sociohistorical emblems that narrate the migration of Agwagune people to their present settlement, the gallantry of the man who led them through the migration route and the wars they fought to find their way to the current place they occupy. The names depict resistance, resilience, perseverance, doggedness and victory, and are religious because the heroic deeds of the name-bearers align with traditional sacrifices, divinatory enchantments and other rituals. On Éffimé (Physical strength) and Úkóng (Very strongman/Wrestler), Éjémót also informed us that the names are reflections of physical strength demonstrated during intentional fights and organized wrestling contests. He added that the Agwagune have a long history of wrestling festivals where the contenders and/or their families consult deities, perform rituals and offer sacrifices for the protection and the victory of contestants. As Uwen and Ukam (2024) have asserted, such cultural events offer contestants the opportunities to display masculine abilities such as strength, bravery, persistence and determination to conquer, and men are somehow socioculturally rated and accorded the deserving honour on account of the number of opponents they defeated during such wrestling contests.

Again, we observed that Ítáng (A courageous woman) and Ídàngá (A proud woman) articulate the eulogization of femininity and the exploits of women who performed exceedingly in male-specific events. The names are a commemoration of female ancestors who had distinguished themselves in activities traditionally reserved for men, such as wrestling, hunting, participation in war, and so on. They bear a religious connection because the name-bearers are often assigned traditional religious roles to mediate between the physical and spiritual universe. A participant (Ésú: male 68) noted that Ízún (Night/Darkness) and Áffiá (Market day) are symbolic for the time and day of birth. Ízún, apart from its articulation of the time of birth, also signifies the socioreligious meaning of night as a time when rituals for specific deities are performed. Nighttime, in the worldview of the people, is the time that ancestors and spirit beings are awakened to relate with the living through divinatory processes. Áffiá, aside from its economic relevance, is a socioreligiously designated day for traditional meetings of the elder’s council, burial of titled men, celebration of specific religious festivals and performance of certain traditional religious rituals. Personal names in this form depict the time, day, place and circumstance of the child’s birth and other critical events that make the names psychologically and historically symbolic (Blum 1997; Olatunji et al. 2015). Applying the principles of the framework of socio-onomastics, one could infer that the category of personal names in this section employs the language culture of the Agwagune and is framed in the sociocultural, socioreligious and situational contexts that situate the names and their meanings within the worldview of the name-bearers, name-givers and name-users.

5. Conclusions

The study is anchored on the ideologies of African traditional religious practices as articulated though personal names related to the people’s conceptualizations, such as those relating to death-prevention, reincarnation and commemoration, their connection with the physical environment and its fauna and flora, cultural and religious festivals and performances, kingship, sociocultural and socioreligious relevance of affluence, migration history, heroic exploits, and day (time) and circumstance of birth that are relevant to Agwagune traditional religious beliefs and ideologies. In the study, we have demonstrated that Agwagune personal names establish the people’s worldview, indigenous knowledge and belief systems that connect their physical and spiritual universe and unite the sociopsychological imports of the name-bearers, name-givers and name-users. Employing indigenous linguistic resources and traditional religious ideologies, the names realign worshippers with their traditional religious tenets, strengthen their spiritual paths and galvanize channels for sustaining a dialogic messaging system, mediating between the living and the ancestors in the spiritual universe. The names are dialogic narrations that provide clues to individual, ancestral, spiritual and religious representations that consolidate their common beliefs and worldview. This way, the personal names become symbolic vehicles that situate the beliefs of the people and form transmission instruments that reconstruct, reinforce and sustain the people’s traditional religious indoctrinations and identities, support their spiritual desires and connect them with supernatural beings to demonstrate communal belongingness, identity and continuity. As argued by some participants, there is a gradual intentional disconnection from the socio-onomastic tradition that eulogizes idolatrous beliefs and traditional practices because of the conversion of the younger generation of the Agwagune people to Christianity. This set of indigenes yearns for a drastic shift in the naming culture, one that will introduce Christian ideologies and beliefs to express their new religious orientations. As the set of personal names (with Christian religious orientations), which the younger generation clamours for, emerges and takes root, the implication is that traditional religiously based personal names will fade out with the aging population who are presently the name-bearers. This situation underscores the significance of this study, in that it will become dependable material for diachronic knowledge about the naming practices of the Agwagune people. The study recommends further studies on the emerging Christian religious naming practices in the Agwagune in order to establish a comparable reference, which could highlight the attitudes of the name-bearers between the two religions’ orientations.