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Englishised names?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2002

Peter K. W. Tan
Peter K. W. Tan
Affiliation:
Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore
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Abstract

An analysis of naming patterns among ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans.

The study of names (or, to give it its Sunday name, onomastics) has not always been accorded high academic prestige and is often thought of as a non-specialist's hobby horse. The fact that most books on naming in bookshops seem to address only prospective parents who need to name their child also does not give the study a high standing. In the university context, this is not something that receives a lot of attention, except within semantics and philosophy where the status of names (as opposed to other words) has been discussed; and within the history of English where place names are studied in relation to their etymology. In this journal, though, attention has been given to commercial names (Banu & Sussex (2001), McArthur (2000)) because of interesting instances of hybridisation involving English and other languages.

Type
Original Articles
Information
English Today , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 2001 , pp. 45 - 53
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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