Personal names and naming theoretical concepts in selected texts of Yvonne Vera and Petina Gappah

Abstract

This article analyses the ways in which two internationally renowned Zimbabwean women writers, Yvonne Vera and Petina Gappah, show a fascination with names in their novels, and in the process call attention to theories and key concepts about personal names and naming practices. One of the main aims of this article is to complement the isolated discussions of the value of names as narrative strategies in Vera and Gappah’s novels. In particular, this article explores how onomastic statements and contexts highlighted in selected novels by Vera and Gappah could be interpreted as significant contributions to an understanding of personal names and naming practices in a specific socio-politico-cultural context of (post)colonial Zimbabwe. The selected onomastic statements and contexts are analysed in this article as comments on nicknames and nicknaming as a form of othering, and personal names and naming as significant pointers to human co-presence and interdependence.