REVISITING THE JUDICIALLY CHANGED PERSONAL NAMES IN ETHIOPIA: A

STUDY FROM A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE (1960-1995 E.C): A CRITICAL

REVIEW
1. Author’s Background
Dr. Aregga Hailemichael authored this article. He is an associate professor at the department of
Ethiopian Languages and Literature at Addis Ababa University. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts
degree from the then Hailesellasie I University, from the department of Ethiopian Languages and
Literature. For his Bachelor of Arts degree, he wrote on Etymological Dictionary of Secular and
Ecclesiastical Titles in Ethiopia. This was in 1960 E.C. He obtained his PhD from Leipzig
University. His PhD dissertation was on A Contrastive Sociolinguistic Analysis of Amharic
Official Written Forms of Address. In addition to what he wrote for academic requirement to get
his university degrees, he also published many articles on sociolinguistic issues on different
languages. For instance, the following are some of them:
 The Social Basis and Impact of Social Change Upon Official Titles in Amharic
 A Socio-Linguistic Approach to the Study of Anywa Personal Names: A Contribution to
Socio-Onomastic Studies in a Nilo-Saharan Language.
 Preliminary Contrastive Socio-Onomastic Observations on Judicially Changed Personal
Names in Two Contrastive Periods (1960-1977 E.C).
 The Argots of Definable Street Children in Addis Abeba: Sociolinguistic Implications for
the Survival of the Fittest.
 A Thematic Analysis of the Afar Camel Folk Literature: An Ethnography of
Communication Approach.
In this article Aregga is exploring why some people change their names. He categorizes
the name changing practice he observed from his data into eight: change of personal
identification names, change of fathers’ names, changes of both identification and fathers’
names, change of ordinary Christian names to Moslem names, minor or partial name changes,
change of double names to one, changes of grandfathers’ names, and unclassified name changes.
Through such category he tries to convince us that the name changes are triggered by some
changes in the socio-cultural, economic and political climate of the country. Therefore, the name
changing practice in the country correlates to the various changes witnessed in Ethiopia.

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2. Historical and Theoretical Framework
Even without citing authoritative sources one can simply say that, when someone writes, he/she
writes from a certain assumption and within a certain context. Accordingly, Aregga writes the
current article I am reviewing in a certain historical and theoretical framework. The basic
theoretical framework that underpinned his study is the view that the practice of changing names
in Ethiopia cannot be grasped well apart from the political, economic, and socio-cultural
dynamics at work in the country. That is, he analyzes the name changes from a sociolinguistic
perspective. To understand such theoretical stance, he contextualized it in a historical
framework. In so doing, he chose the period from 1960 E.C. to 1995 E.C. He divided this span of
time into three (from 1963-1965, 1973-1975 and 1993-1995) corresponding to the imperial,
military and EPRDF periods respectively, in order to compare and contrast the name changing
practices during the three regimes. He tends to argue that the 1974 Ethiopian revolution is a
watershed in the name changing practices as it brought in new socio-cultural, economic and
political dynamics. While the former period witnessed the assimilation of non-Christian and non-
Amharic speaking Ethiopians to Amharic speaking culture and religion through name changes,
the latter period witnessed a departure from such a practice as the old way was swept away by
the economic, political and socio-economic dynamics witnessed during the Ethiopian revolution
and the subsequent coming to power of the Derg. It is within this theoretical and historical
framework that Aregga tries to contextualize his study.
3. Research Methodology
His research approach is mainly quantitative, i.e. he mainly used statistical data. Accordingly, he
collected empirical data from two news papers (the daily newspaper Addis Zemen and the weekly
news paper Yezareyitu Ityopya), tabulated the results and calculated them in percentages. He
collected 633 cases of name changes from the total of 284 issues during the period under
discussion. He explains his methodology as such: “By using random selection, every other
month from September to August from 1960 E.C. to 1995 E.C. was selected and hence six
months data for each of the nine years was collected. A total of 633, court arranged cases were
found and were listed from 1 to 633 using the chronological order of their issuance in the two
Amharic newspapers” (Aregga 2010:113). In addition, he used qualitative approach.
Accordingly, he conducted interviews with a dozen of informants who have various

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backgrounds- personal name bearers under study, elders, religious leaders (from the Islamic
Affairs Supreme Council of Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church), officials from
federal first instance courts, and the Federal Courts of Sharia Consolidation. He also used a lot of
secondary reference materials (about forty four sources).
4. Writing Style
In ethnographic writing, any piece of writing can be analyzed on the basis of various criteria.
One of the ways to do the analysis is to see from which perspective the writer writes. In the
process of writing, a writer may present the emic (insiders’ perspective) or etic (the outsiders’
view or the view of the writer) perspective. 1 Seen from this point of view, Aregga analyzes the
statistical data he generated from the etic perspective because he remains analytical to prove the
assumption he started with. Throughout the article one cannot see any word or statement he
directly obtained from his informants. In addition, what has been written in the article is the sole
interpretation of the writer. He alone is visible in the article and as such we do not hear the voice
of other informants. In fact, this could be because of the nature of the data and the methodology
he employed. The data he generated was mainly quantitative and indirectly obtained from
newspaper and other informants. This seems to have clearly precluded Aregga from presenting
the emic view. In addition, one may say that Aregga was not trained in anthropology and as such
was not aware of the emic/etic dichotomy.
The other point that should be emphasized in writing any anthropological work is how
the writer presents him/herself in the text. The question here is: does the writer address
him/herself in active voice in the first person like “I collected data…” or does he/she address
him/herself as invisible narrator like “data was collected…” (Marcus and Cushman 1982:31-32).
As can be clearly seen from his article, Aregga presents himself as the invisible writer,
addressing himself as “the researcher” than as “I”. It is argued that writing in the first person
enables us to know how the ethnographer got what he came to know (McGee and Warms
2008:534). It is also argued that writing in the first person allows the “plurality of subjects… (the
author and the first person)” (Rosenau 1992:28). Closely connected to this issue is the view that
the writer should represent the various voices. One of such cases is the issue of gender. In line
with this one can see that Arega categorized his data based on gender into male and female. Here
even if we do not hear the voices of women from themselves, we see that the researcher is aware
1
See at http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/95/04701810/0470181095-2.pdf.
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of such an issue in so far as he categorized his data as such. In fact, it is only the voice of the
researcher that we see in the text.
5. Critiques
In an endeavor to get idea on how the scientific community reacted to Aregga’s article, I combed
through various internet sites but I was not able to get one. At the absence of such a critique, I
am making my own critiques of the article. First of all, it is fair to say that Aregga wrote
interesting article on a timely issue. I also share his view that studying name changing practices
in Ethiopia should be contextualized in a historical framework. One can better understand the
socio-cultural, economic and political changes that give rise to name changing within such
historical framework. His consultation of many secondary sources (about forty four) should also
be seen in a positive light. And yet I remain critical on some aspects.
To begin with, Aregga did not say a word on the limitation of his study. It is important to
make clear the limitation of any study for it enables the researcher to frankly and honestly locate
where the weakness of his/her study lies. This is from the assumption that any study cannot be
complete. In addition, the methodology he employed seems insufficient to effectively deal with
the problem under study. The statistical data he gathered from newspapers enabled him to get
access to list of people who changed their names (both to former and new names) and when they
did that. However, he was not able to get access to the motives and the reasons lying behind such
name changes. Because of this, he is speculating the reasons behind the name changes in many
instances when he analyzes his data. He was also not able to generate huge data through the
dozens of interviews he conducted because he seems to have utilized this method to supplement
his statistical data and the interviews he made were also limited to certain areas. In my view, this
article could have been written even better than it is currently had the researcher employed
additional methods like case studies of people who experienced name changes. At one point he
writes that personal name-bearers under study were part of a dozen of interviews he conducted.
And yet he did not show us which part of his data came from that. The other alternative method
could be that, rather than interviewing officials of the federal first instance courts, he could have
directly get access to the applications of those people who changed their names. This is because
one has to present application to the court to explain as to why she/he should change his/her
name. Based on his statistical data, Aregga is speculative as to what specifically triggered name

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changes. The danger here is that he gets the reason for changing names from such a speculation
or not. This creates the danger of generalizing beyond what the data says. Because of this, it
seems, Aregga’s explanations are more general, without providing specific and detailed
information on some issues as explained below. Furthermore, we are not able to get emotions
involved in name changing practice because Aregga did not generate his data through case
studies of people who experienced the issue. I am not saying that it is methodologically easy to
conduct the research this way, but such kind of approach is likely to produce more specific data.
At the very outset, Aregga tells us that his study is comparative- contrastive explanation
of name changes during the three regimes in Ethiopia. Here too, I see certain limitations. First of
all, although he statistically showed the general trend of name changes across the three regimes
in table one, he does not specifically indicate which data came from which period, in the rest of
his analysis. The reader has to decipher that for him/herself. For instance, he rightly described
that during the imperial regime the emphasis was on the assimilation of other Ethiopians to
Amhara and Christian cultures and one way of doing this was through changing names. Here he
just glossed over it indicating the general historical truth any one knows without exemplifying it
from the newspaper he analyzed. One should also bear in mind that names are not only changed
through the court of law. This was particularly the case during the imperial regime. At least in
footnote Baye Yimam presents the case of students who were stripped of their names in school.
He indicates one instance in which a certain Ayele Meshesha who participated in this process has
told him that “[…] in the past […] the Minister of Education had to give new names to the
scholarship winners whose names, he thought, might sound strange to the Emperor to whom the
students had to pay their respect before their departure for abroad” (Baye 2006:66).
He emphatically discusses the changes during the Derg to show how the dynamics at
work during that time led some people to change their names. He provides examples of names,
particularly throne names that were changed to other ordinary Amharic names or Biblical names.
Except telling us that the Amharization process ended after the imperial regime was overthrown,
he does not bring in examples of name changes in which peoples formerly assimilated to
Amharic language and culture restored their ethnic names. In the justification part, he magnifies
the achievement of the Derg in ensuring equality for the nationalities language and culture
displacing the privileged position of Amharic language and culture. In fact, there were

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declarations and cosmetic changes that the Derg made as Aregga cites. And yet, his presentation
of the facts here is a bit exaggerated. Despite the declaration of equal status of languages in
Ethiopia, still Amharic remained the language of every government institution. The Derg used
fifteen languages for the Zemecha program and yet that seems much for political mobilization
than for empowering nationality languages (See Smith 2008). Despite promising us to provide
contrastive explanation of name changing during the three regimes, Aregga did say nothing
about the changes during the EPRDF period both in the literature and discussion part. This is a
very big gap. So, is it possible to compare and contrast name changing practices during the three
regimes without saying anything about the EPRDF period?
Aregga concludes his article saying that “When these names are analyzed, it was found
that the changes were often from Moslem or chosen family names to Christian names, or vice
versa, and from a personal name designating a certain nationality to a different one.” This is a
vague conclusion. On one hand, he does not present examples of name changes from Muslim to
Christian name. On the other hand, he did not present examples of name changes from one ethnic
group to the other: from which “a certain nationality” to “a different one?”
His analysis of the reason for the change of Muslim names to Christian names is rather
simplistic. According to him, women mostly changed their names from Christian to Muslim ones
because of two reasons. First, Muslim women were not allowed to be bar attendants during the
imperial regime being with a Muslim name. So they changed their names to Christian names in
order to get employed. Following the revolution these women wanted to restore their names.
Secondly, those with Muslim names have easier access to visa at the Saudi embassy for the
‘umra’ travel to Saudi Arabia. However, the reason could be more than this. If the women’s
name change is explained in terms of this, what about the males name change that he presented?
As Aregga pointed out, the Ethiopian revolution confirmed the religious right of the Ethiopian
Muslims. In light of this, it is also possible that name changes were triggered by a sense of being
proud in one’s own religion.
The main aim of Aregga’s article is to show the impact of political, economic and socio-
cultural dynamics on names and naming practice. In many ways, he showed how names were
changed because of these dynamics. However, it is not clear how he can tell us how the naming
practice changes from his statistical evidence. This is because naming practice is more than

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changing names through the court of law. It can also refer to the change in how the society gives
names to its children. This cannot be seen from his statistical evidence though one cannot rule
out the fact that change in socio-cultural, political and economic sphere of life is likely to induce
change in the way the society names its children. But this is too general and speculative and thus
cannot be concretely grasped from his statistical data.
In justification part, he writes that his study attempts to show “the impact of changing
socio-cultural factors such as socio-economic background, ethnic origin, occupation, sex and the
like on names and naming practices in all administrative regions of Ethiopia.” Here one may
raise many questions. First, his mode of writing looks as though he is making summary of
literature than what he is aiming to do in a research. This is specially so when he mentions the
changing socio-cultural factors and at the end writes ‘and the like.’ As research has to be
delimited, it is not a research language to use such words. Second, he claims that his study
represents all administrative regions of Ethiopia. Here he does not show where those who
changed their names came from. It is also not clear how he came to know where they came from.
Third, it is not clear as to what the term administrative region refers to. It seems that he is using
this term in the context of the pre-1991Ethiopia. Here too he ignores the developments in the
post 1991 period. Furthermore, it is also not clear why he chose the specific years as watershed
in his study. For instance, why 1960 and 1995 were chosen as marking the beginning and end of
his study period? He is also not uniform in his application of calendar. The title is in Ethiopian
calendar but inside the text Gregorian calendar is used.
Finally, I would like to say that Aregga appears in the text as a detached and objective
researcher. This made him not to tell us his experiences with regard to the problem at hand. Let
alone him who have been teaching and researching since the 1960s, I even know a lot of such
cases from my little experience. He must have come across to his students who changed their
names through such long experience of teaching. Even the registrar office of AAU could have
been the source of information on such names. Even though his method seems plausible overtly,
it conceals many facts.

References

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Aregga Hailemichael. 2010. “Revisiting the Judicially Changed Personal Names in Ethiopia: A
Study from a Sociolinguistic Perspective (1960-1995 E.C.).” EASSRR, vol. XXVI, no.2,
pp. 109-126.

Baye Yimam. 2006. “Personal Names and Identity Formation: A Cross Cultural Perspective.” In
The Perils of Face: Essays on Cultural Contact, Respect and Self-esteem in Southern
Ethiopia. Strecker, Ivo and Lyndall, Jean (eds.), Berlin:Lit Verlag.

Marcus and Cushman. 1982. “Ethnographies as Texts.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol.11,
pp. 225-69.

McGee, Jon and Richard Warms. 2008. Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History.
Fourth edition. New York: McGraw Hills.

Riemer, Frances. Ethnography Research. Available online at

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/95/04701810/0470181095-2.pdf. Accessed
Feb.20, 2012.

Rosenau, Marie. 1992. Post-modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and
Intrusions. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Smith, Lahra. 2008. “The Politics of Contemporary Language Policy in Ethiopia.” Journal of
Developing Societies, vol. 24 (2), pp. 207-243.