The sociolinguistics of compound surnames among some educated Yoruba married women
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Date
2015-09
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Publisher
LDS, University campus Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom (Indexed in Scopus)
Abstract
This article discusses the sociolinguistics of compound surnames among some Yoruba married women in Nigeria. The study establishes the fact that some married women still retain their father’s names after marriage due to some social reasons or factors. The need for easy recognition, the desire to avoid problems of official documentation in the offices after marriage, efforts to guard against the extinction of family names, and to protect ancestral roots, among others, are found to be responsible for this practice. The paper argues that some of the social factors which are found to be responsible for the use of compound surnames by married women include education, religion and exposure to western culture. The paper argues further that this practice among educated Yoruba married women is indicative of erosion of this aspect of Yoruba tradition as a result of contact with Islam and the west. The paper recommends a similar investigation among illiterate Yoruba married women and also among other ethnic groups such as Hausa, Igbo, Tiv, Efik, Fulani, etc., to determine other reasons, if any, for this practice. Two main methods were used to collect data for the study: questionnaire and oral interview. The data collected were presented in tabular form, using descriptive statistics.
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Keywords
Compound surnames, Yoruba, marriage, lexemes, onomastics, anthroponomastics, naming
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