Evolving naming patterns: anthroponymics within a ...

World Englishes, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 367–384, 2004.

0883–2919

Evolving naming patterns: anthroponymics within a theory of the dynamics of non-Anglo Englishes PETER K. W. TAN* ABSTRACT: English place names show vestiges of the original languages spoken (e.g. Kent is Celtic): this is seen as characterising the early stages of dialect birth. In contrast to place names, little attention has been given to personal names. This paper attempts to explore ways in which this can be done by examining ethnic-Chinese names in Singapore with a view to understanding how this could be related to the spread of non-Anglo Englishes. To illustrate my point, I examine graduation lists as data; these are from Singaporean universities and span 40 years and characterise the patterns of change. One significant change is the rise of the proportion of the population with English-based given names, although there are other patterns of change too: these are indicative of some of the tensions within Singaporean society. I also suggest that some aspects of anthroponymics can be incorporated into the theory of dialect birth.

1. INTRODUCTION

The 36th American Vice-President Hubert Humphrey disagreed with Juliet when she said, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet’ (Romeo and Juliet, 2.1.85). After all, she was trying to justify her love for Romeo. Humphrey declared in a speech made on 26 March 1966, ‘In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears’ (cited in Andrews 1993: 616). As far as personal names are concerned, we need only witness the range of books on babies’ names in bookshops to appreciate their importance to literate cultures. All cultures that I am aware of place great emphasis on the choice of names as they provide the necessary link to the future, in terms of the parents’ (other name givers’) hopes and aspirations for the child, and to the past, in terms of the connectedness of the name to the child’s ancestors or identification with a particular community: the name is a ‘repository of accumulated meanings, practices and beliefs, a powerful linguistic means of asserting identity . . . and inhabiting a social world’ (Rymes, 2001: 160). Because particular names are also closely associated with particular languages, we might also assume that the choice of a particular given name provides an index to linguistic identity as well. Even the commonest names are to some extent culture-specific in form. John is one of the commonest first names in Europe, but it is still a reasonable guess that a man called John is English-speaking and Christian. If he is German, we expect him to be called Johann or Hans: the choice of the form John for a German is unusual and suggestive of Anglophilia. At the very least it would invite comment or explanation. (Hanks and Hodges, 1996: vii)

* Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, 7 Arts Link, Singapore 117570. E-mail: [email protected] ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Clearly, onomastics in general, and anthroponymics in particular, is a subject worthy of study in that it reveals the cultural underpinnings of a community and its identity (in the sense used by Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985) and Trudgill (1982)). It is of course also worthy of study in its own right. In addition to this, and it is this that I wish to focus on, personal names represent an important index to linguistic identity.

2. ONOMASTICS WITHIN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

Standard textbooks on linguistics usually provide some discussion of names as proper nouns (e.g. Fromkin and Rodman, 1998: 168–71). Discussions within linguistics have tended to focus on issues of sense and reference as in the various chapters in Ludlow (1997) or the textbook on semantics, Hurford and Heasley (1983). An additional diversion into onomastics does however occur in an area within English linguistics: in standard accounts of the history of the English language. Baugh and Cable, in their account, discuss the presence, in England, of Celtic place names, such as Kent and Thames (1993: 73) and Scandinavian place names, such as Rugby and Lowestoft (1993: 96). Going beyond place names, they do include a small note on the Scandinavian influence on personal names with the -son ending (such as Stevenson and Johnson), but by and large the emphasis is on place names (toponymics) rather than personal names (anthroponymics). Languages that are or have been spoken remain as place names, an artefact or a witness to their present or past prevalence. Names derived from various languages, therefore, bear witness to migration patterns as well as the establishment of hegemonies. Referring to the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, Galbi notes that within a few generations of the Norman Conquest of England, most given names were those brought by the invaders, although there is no evidence that the Norman clergy or court compelled the adoption of Norman names. By about 1250 pre-Conquest names had essentially died out. (2002: 280)

Norman England was multilingual, with (Norman, but later Parisian) French operating as a superstrate (‘overlaid’) language and English as the substrate (‘underlying’) language. Previously, English (or Anglo-Saxon) operated in almost all contexts. We note that in this case, given name change accompanied the change in the language situation and political situation. In today’s world, English is much more likely to operate as a superstrate language rather than a substrate language. Since around 1600, English speakers have moved out of Britain and thereby spread the language. With British colonialism followed by American domination in the world, one common element is the English language, so that English exists as a superstrate language in many parts of the world. Indeed, English has, perhaps rather melodramatically, been labelled as a killer language because of communities shifting to English, resulting in the death of their original languages. I agree with Lucko (2003) that it is not always helpful to express the sentiment in such an emotionally charged fashion, but we cannot deny the fact that English now exerts a tremendous influence globally, not least in being adopted as an additional language in various communities, giving rise to what I call non-Anglo Englishes (following Wong, 2003). I use this term for the kind of English adopted by culturally non-Anglo-Saxon communities in contrast to British, American or Australian English. ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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The study of the New English varieties has been going on for more than two decades. Rather than studying the inroads made by the English language in each nation as a separate case, Schneider (2003) suggests that there are sufficient common elements for him to propose a theory of the dynamics of the New Englishes in which there are five phases: 1 2 3 4 5

foundation, exonormative stabilisation, nativisation, endonormative stabilisation, differentiation.

Phase 1 (foundation) represents the initial period of colonial occupation; phase 2 (exonormative stabilisation) the period of colonial stability. Some degree of weakening of the ties with the ‘mother’ country occurs in phase 3 (nativisation); innovative indigenous speakers of English begin to make modifications to the English language so that more conservative speakers notice this, and these modifications become the mainstays of the ‘complaint tradition’. Phase 4 (endonormative stabilisation) occurs after a significant event (such as independence) when the setting up of a national identity becomes important and ethnic differences are played down; linguistically this is seen in an acceptance of local norms, a movement towards a more positive evaluation of these norms and the rise of literary creativity. Finally phase 5 (differentiation) marks the period of stable nationhood when internal socio-political differentiation occurs. Fiji has been put in phase 2; Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines in phase 3, Singapore in phase 4 and both Australia and New Zealand in phase 5. There are, of course, others like Brutt-Griffler who would prefer to see the various strands as being distinctive: the spread of English firstly within the British Isles; secondly to America and Australasia; and finally to Asia, Africa and the rest of the word. She insists that ‘three quite different processes were at work’ (Brutt-Griffler, 2002: 116). Similarly, Mufwene sees ‘settlement colonies’ and ‘exploitation colonies’ as being distinct (2001: 205). Schneider does not of course deny the existence of distinctives but claims that there are sufficient similarities for the various Englishes to fit into a single model of development. The neatness of his formulation is of course one of its attractive features. One element that Schneider recognises is that heavy toponymic borrowing is a feature of the birth of an English dialect, associated with phase 1: We find heavy toponymic borrowing in a variety of situations which geographically and historically are quite far apart but which have resulted in outcomes which in that respect are astoundingly similar. (2003: 245)

Therefore, he mentions Native American toponyms in North America such as Chattahoochee and Milwaukee (p. 245), Celtic toponyms in Britain such as Kent and Dover (p. 245), Maori toponyms in New Zealand such as Rotorua and Waitangi (p. 267) and Aboriginal toponyms in Australia such as Wodonga and Youangarra (p. 267). Schneider makes a distinction between settler communities and indigenous communities; and what is interesting is that the examples given are from places where culturally Anglo-Saxon communities have settled (I use this more benign term to include more violent or forced forms of settlement such as invasions and penal transportations). Of course, this is no less true of places where English has, more or less, taken root but where ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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large-scale settlement has not occurred – places where non-Anglo Englishes are spoken. For example, Savage and Yeo (2003), in their analysis of street names in Singapore, point out many names that are colonial (therefore, English) in origin (Raffles Place) as well as names that are Malay (Jalan Besar) or Chinese (Boon Tat Street) in origin. What is interesting is that while there is concern about toponymics, there is apparently no interest in anthroponymics. It surely cannot be the case that the issue of place names is an element in the dynamics of the development of Englishes, whereas the issue of personal names is not. What this paper attempts to do therefore is to isolate the case of the Englishisation of personal names in Singapore and to explore the possibility of fitting this phenomenon into the development of Englishes. My label ‘Englishisation’ emphasises linguistic, rather than cultural, change. (Kachru, for example, talks about ‘Englishizing’ the non-Western languages with which English has prolonged contact (1986: 13).) For cultural change, the label ‘Anglicisation’ is generally used. Nonetheless, I concede that these two notions are difficult to tease apart. 3. CHANGING NAMING PATTERNS

It is of course no great news that naming patterns change over time. Galbi (2002), for example, compared given names before the nineteenth century and those in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and notes that there is a decided reduction in the clustering of given names in England. Elsewhere, changing name patterns have been noted in Africa (e.g. in Herbert, 1996). Of particular interest to me are changing patterns occurring in the non-Anglo English world: I take as instances of these the situation of the black population in South Africa; the situation of the Philippines; and the situation of Hong Kong. South Africa consisted of, among other things, several provinces administered by Britain until 1910. The earliest province to become British was the Cape Colony in 1795. The Philippines changed from being a Spanish colony to being an American colony in 1898 before independence in 1946. China was forced to cede Hong Kong to the British after the Opium Wars in 1842, and it therefore remained a British colony before reverting to China in 1997. What links these states is that they have gone through the experience of being administered by English-speaking nations and that the peoples described here are not of AngloSaxon origin and have traditionally spoken a range of unrelated languages: Niger-Congo in South Africa, Malayo-Polynesian in the Philippines and Sino-Tibetan in Hong Kong. De Klerk (2002), and de Klerk and Bosch (1995, 1996) report on South African name changes. ‘The pattern of an African first name, an English middle name, and a surname has long been noted in southern Africa’ (de Klerk, 2002: 202), though a significant trend is towards Africanisation with a reduction in the number of informants with English (as opposed to African) given names: there are ‘increasing trends towards rejection of these “English” names owing to increasing socio-political awareness’ (Klerk and Bosch, 1995: 71). Aquino (2000) examined naming patterns in the Philippines and compared given names of four generations of Filipinos and concluded that English given names are replacing the Spanish-style Filipino given names. The two oldest generations had the lowest percentage of English given names (hovering around 0%) and the youngest generation had the highest (around 40%). Similarly, ‘Filipino’ (read: Spanish) given names are on the decline; they are represented the highest in the two oldest generations (hovering at around 50%) and lowest in the youngest generation (around 3%). ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004


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Li characterises Hong Kong as ‘a bicultural metropolis and a meeting place between East and West for over a century’ (1997: 494). He notes the increased use of English given names, as opposed to or in addition to (Cantonese) Chinese given names, and concludes that this enables Hongkongers to acquire a ‘borrowed’ (i.e. Western) identity and ‘communicate with the interlocutor on a more egalitarian basis’ (p. 512) and overcome the hierarchical underpinnings of the Chinese system. Similarly, Louie (1998) notes changes in the naming patterns amongst Chinese emigrants to the US, including the use of English given names and the Englishisation (or Americanisation) of Chinese surnames. It must be said that the name studies mentioned above are different in their methodologies: the study of South African and Filipino name patterns are more quantitative in orientation whereas the study of Hong Kong and American Chinese patterns are more qualitative in nature. All the studies focused on official names, whereas Li was also concerned about unofficial self-bestowed names. Louie’s study deals with an immigrant community in a nation where an Anglo English variety is the main variety. Despite these differences, the common thread is that naming patterns have undergone a pattern of Englishisation, so that an English given name is available as an option. If this can be seen as a kind of centripetal force, what Brutt-Griffler calls the process of ‘world language convergence’ (2002: 174), the Africanisation tendency in South Africa can be seen as a reactionary centrifugal force. It is not impossible to imagine the equivalent processes of Filipinisation and Sinicisation for the other cases mentioned. The Africanisation tendency, however, presupposes that the process of Englishisation had proceeded a fair bit, because otherwise it would not be possible to revert to a more African style given name. Additionally, we can also note the interest in Celtic-based given names in the British Isles (Kieran from Gaelic or Siaˆn from Welsh), and this could be seen as a reassertion of the Celtic past of the British Isles. Indeed, Talib (2002) suggests that Scotland, Wales and Ireland can be considered post-colonial states, so that the generalisations about naming patterns could well apply to these places too. Another significant difference is that de Klerk and Bosch emphasise the centrifugal force at work, whereas the others emphasise the centripetal force. It could be said that Louie’s study is different (for the reason mentioned above), in which case it could be said that the East Asian case studies seem to differ in tendency from the African case study. We might say that there is a different regional focus. Another possible interpretation is that the South African phenomenon is evidence of the country having progressed further in Schneider’s dynamics of the New Englishes: Englishisation had been too successful so that a reactionary force is now in evidence. The question then is to see how the Singapore data fit into this paradigm and to try to place this phenomenon within the overall theory of the non-Anglo Englishes. 4. TRADITIONAL CHINESE NAMES

Singapore is a multiethnic and multilingual nation. The ethnic divisions have been reinforced by the requirement that a person’s ethnicity be recorded in official documents such as identity cards: persons are labelled as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Others. The ethnicity classification also determines the additional language that pupils in schools are required to take. (All state schools are English-medium schools.) The three major ethnicities therefore have different naming traditions, and names are almost always recognisable as belonging to a Chinese, Malay or Indian person. Mixed-ethnicity marriages, and ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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therefore mixed-ethnicity offspring, are very much in the minority. In order not to complicate the picture, I have chosen to examine naming patterns amongst the Chinese. They also form the majority, comprising about three-quarters of the population of Singapore. The ethnic-Chinese population have traditionally conformed to the naming traditions they had before they emigrated from southern Chinese provinces, predominantly Guangdong and Fujian, with Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese1 being the traditional Chinese languages associated with these provinces. In this respect then, the naming pattern conforms to the traditional naming pattern described by Li (1997), Louie (1998) and Li and Lawson (2002): the surname (consisting of almost always one character) is placed first; this is followed by the given name (usually two characters, but possibly also one character). In Chinese writing, each character represents one syllable; when romanised, the typical pattern is for there to be a monosyllabic surname and a disyllabic given name (whether hyphenated, or written as one or two words), as in the following. (In each case the surname is given in bold face.) Hu Jintao [Chinese president] Li Peng [former Chinese prime minister] Mao Zedong (or, Mao Tse-tung) [former chairman of the People’s Republic of China] Tung Chi-hwa (or, Tung Chee-hwa, or Tung Chi Hwa) [Hong Kong chief executive] Sun Yat-sen (or Sun Yat Sen) [former Chinese nationalist]

The apparent orthographic choices available, especially for the given names, are deceptive because if these names were written in Chinese, they would be written in three characters each, except for Li Peng which would be written in two characters. For given names with two syllables, one of the syllables (usually but not necessarily the first) could be shared with all the cousins of the same sex. This is known as the generation name, and Li and Lawson (2002) point out that the practice of giving generation names appears to be losing popularity in China. Official documents in China are of course written (only) in Chinese characters. This would not be the case for Hong Kong and Singapore, where some form of romanisation is required. I see this as a form of Englishisation (Tan 2001) and it is an important feature of traditional Chinese names in Singapore. This would of course not be peculiar to this part of the world; other areas under colonial rule would also have naming practices subject to ‘the demands of (colonial) bureaucracy’ (de Klerk and Bosch, 1995: 71). In this respect then, traditional Singaporean Chinese names are distinct from Chinese names in other parts of the world. The only scholarly accounts of Chinese names in Singapore and Malaysia are those by Jones (1994, 1997), who worked in the Immigration headquarters in Penang in the 1950s and therefore had access to many names. The conventions in Malaya (today Peninsular Malaysia) and Singapore are similar, being proximate areas that came under British rule. Names from China are romanised today according to the pronunciation in Mandarin (as opposed to Cantonese or Hokkien) and following the official system of romanising Mandarin (the hanyu pinyin system, as opposed to say the Giles-Wade system). The spelling would therefore depend on the Chinese language spoken by the informant, so that the surname Zhang in Mandarin pinyin could be written Teoh (Hokkien), Cheong (Cantonese), Teo (Teochew) or Chang (Mandarin, but not in pinyin) (Jones, 1997: 62). These spellings are of course based on English values of letters and at that time ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004


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non-English-based systems were also available in the region. In the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Dutch-based system prevailed, and the surname would be spelt Tsjang; whereas in Indo-China, the French-based system prevailed, and the surname would be spelt Tchang (Jones, 1997: 63). Examples of traditional Singaporean Chinese names include the following cabinet ministers in the Singapore government (these are older ministers, all born in the 1940s; surname in bold typeface as before): Goh Chok Tong [prime minister] Wong Kan Seng [minister for home affairs] Lee Boon Yang [minister for information, communication and the arts]. Mah Bow Tan [minister for national development]

These conform to the tradition naming pattern: . . . .

surnames occur initially, given names are spelt out as two words, romanisation is based on a non-Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, romanisation is based on conventional English values, including English digraphs such as and English-style doubling of vowel letters such as and (for more details, see Tan, 2001).

Given that the traditional naming system is fairly robust, departures from such a system would be fairly obvious and call for explanation. Two developments that stand out are the inclusion of English-based in addition to Chinese-based given names, and the adoption of the pinyin style for Chinese-based given names. Before I can look at the name data, it remains for me to clarify the terms used. 5. TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

In discussions of personal names, a range of labels can be used. The element of the name that is passed down through the generations can be known as the last name, the family name or the surname. I use the term surname because it is the most common in Singapore and because last name is misleading in the light of where it is placed in the Singaporean convention. The part of name that identifies the individual rather than the family can be known as the first name, forename, Christian name, personal name and given name. Where there are several of these, additional terms like middle name or, sometimes, second name may be employed. I will avoid first name or forename because these will cause confusion as this is placed after the surname in the Chinese convention. Personal name is ambiguous because it can be used contrastively to, say, place name. I will therefore use the term given name (GN) for these names. The generation name (mentioned above) is part of the given name. Additionally, I make a distinction between English-based and Chinese-based GNs. If we use Goh Chok Tong as our example, Goh is the surname and Chok Tong is the Chinesebased GN because it represents an attempt to represent the pronunciation (whether the resemblance is close or distant) of the Chinese characters in any Chinese language. Note that I describe this as Chinese-based rather than merely Chinese, because as I noted above it has undergone some form of Englishisation through being romanised in an English fashion. If we use the name of another Singaporean cabinet minister Tony Tan Keng Yam as another example, Tan is the surname, Keng Yam the Chinese-based GN. I will label ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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Tony as the English-based GN. In Singaporean names, these can occur before the surname resulting in the surname being found in the middle, sandwiched between the English- and Chinese-based GN. I describe the name as English-based not just English because although the huge majority of non-Chinese-based given names can be found in an English dictionary of GNs (such as the Oxford Dictionary of First Names (Hanks and Hodges, 1996)), including Bible-based names in their English form (e.g. Rebecca, Lydia, Joshua and Matthew), there might also be some more unorthodox names such as Xhann and Odilia. Unique names (Dunkling, 1993) are of course not peculiar to Singapore. The fact that most English-based GNs have their origins in other languages such as Latin (Adrian), Hebrew (Daniel), Greek (Margaret), French (Louise) or Celtic (Keith) is immaterial; these are the names now associated with Anglo English speakers. A name can also include more than one English-based GN as is typical of the Anglo-American naming pattern; I will call them the first and second English-based GNs. (There are no names in the data with more than two English-based GNs.) Apart from the romanisation process, I see the increased use of English-based GNs as contributing to the process of Englishisation. A further step towards Englishisation might also be the omission of Chinese-based GNs. Running against the process of Englishisation for ethnic-Chinese names is the process of Mandarinisation (see Teo, 2002). This can be seen as the counterpart of Africanisation (de Klerk, 2002). One difference though is that Mandarin is not the traditional language of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore as most of the immigrants came from southern China. (Mandarin Chinese is native to northern China.) Mandarin is, however, the Chinese language that has undergone the process of standardisation most fully and the fact that it is of course associated with China and its position as a rising star makes the knowledge of Mandarin an economic asset. The Singaporean government, in trying to counteract the forces of Westernisation (in the form of Englishisation among other things), tries to advocate a discovery of Asian, and especially Chinese, roots – in other words a process of Sinicisation. However, it equates the process of Sinicisation with the process of Mandarinisation. Some, like Teo (2002), however, are critical of this because, among other things, it disenfranchises speakers of non-Mandarin Chinese languages. A strong mouthpiece for Sinicisation and Mandarinisation is Singapore’s elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew. A look at the names employed in his family illustrates the process of Mandarinisation clearly.2 Harry Lee Kuan Yew (b. 1923) Lee Hsien Loong (b. 1952) Li Xiuqi (b. early 1980s)

Lee Hsien Loong is Lee Kuan Yew’s eldest child and Li Xiuqi is Lee Hsien Loong’s eldest child. Lee Kuan Yew’s name is in a near traditional format, and romanised in an Englishised manner. The Chinese-based GN Kuan Yew appears to bear some resemblance to Mandarin, whereas the norm (Jones, 1997) would have been to have it based on a non-Mandarin Chinese language.3 Before he entered politics, his full name was Harry Lee Kuan Yew; indeed he continues to be known as Harry by his close friends. The rejection of the English-based GN can be seen as a conscious step towards Sinicisation. Indeed, he bemoans the situation in his comments made in 1984: . . .over one-third of Chinese parents registered additional Western or Christian personal names [=English-based given names] for their sons and daughters. ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004


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Twenty years ago (1964), only one-fifteenth registered Christian personal names. Western influence has increased by five times. (Lee, 1984)

It is therefore not surprising that his own children and grandchildren do not have Englishbased GNs. Lee Hsien Loong’s name is different from Lee Kwan Yew’s in that the Chinese-based GN is now based on Mandarin Chinese. The romanised form seems to have been adapted from the older Wade-Giles romanisation tradition (the full Wade-Giles transliteration would have resulted in Li Hsien-lung; the pinyin version Li Xianlong would not have been available at the time), and the Englishised compromise avoids having part of the GN resemble the name of the organ for breathing in English. It is often not possible to tell, merely by looking at the romanised form of names, whether they are based on Mandarin or some other Chinese language. I will therefore not attempt to do this in the analysis below. Finally Li Xiuqi’s name shows full Mandarinisation, with the romanisation based on the standard pinyin system: the GN is fused as one word, and the un-English system can be seen in the use of and for various Mandarin aspirates (the Wade-Giles form would be Li Hsiu-ch’i). Also notice that the surname has been spelt differently from her father’s or grandfather’s. In sum, then, the features of Englishisation that have been isolated are: E1 E2 E3 E4

conventional romanised names, employment of an English-based GN, employment of a second English-based GN, omission of a Chinese-based GN.

And the features of Mandarinisation are: M1 omission of an English-based GN, M2 employment of names based on Mandarin rather than some other Chinese language, M3 employment of pinyin conventions of romanisation. 6. THE DATA

The data to be examined are taken from name lists of students being awarded first degrees at graduation ceremonies from universities in Singapore. I have not been able to get access to names data from the Registry of Births because they are not available for public inspection. Because university entry in Singapore has been based on merit (seen in the performance in various matriculation examinations such as the Higher School Certificate and the A (advanced) level of the General Certificate Examination), the list should include a broad cross-section of Singaporeans from various social strata. Nonetheless, I accept that this represents only a selection of the Singaporean population of a certain age. Because the universities represented are or were English-medium universities (with the exception of one which was a Mandarin-medium university), they also represent those with at least a certain level of language proficiency. The records span some 40 years. The names will reflect the naming practices of some 20 to 25 years before those years. There were generally very few mature students taking first degrees in the universities represented, and names of students taking further degrees or diplomas were excluded. ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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The sources of the name lists are therefore the following. 6.1 Nanyang University 1960 Nanyang University was the only Mandarin-medium university in Singapore, and it offered only first degrees. Not surprisingly, all the students were ethnically Chinese and all 344 students were included in the data. 6.2 University of Singapore 1968 The University of Singapore was the only English-medium university in Singapore, and the huge majority of its courses were undergraduate courses. It contained a mix of ethnicities. Names without Chinese-based surnames, as well as those being awarded diplomas or postgraduate degrees were discarded from the data; this is true of the data from here as well as in the lists below. This list would provide a rough counterpart to the Nanyang University list of names of those who had undergone an English-medium, as opposed to a Mandarin-medium, education. Together these names represent the generation that is closest to that of Lee Kuan Yew. 6.3 National University of Singapore 1983 As a result of the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University in 1980 to form the National University of Singapore (NUS), this became the sole university in Singapore. Although this is an English-medium university, some of the students might have come through a Mandarin-medium education in primary or secondary school or both.4 The names here represent the generation that is closest to that of Lee Hsien Loong. 6.4 National University of Singapore 2000 By this time this is no longer the sole university in Singapore. In a bid to internationalise the university, a significant number of foreign students, particularly from China, have been admitted to various undergraduate programmes, particularly in Engineering and Computer Science. In view of this, names from students from these faculties have been omitted. The names here represent the generation that is closest to that of Li Xiuqi. 7. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The name data from Nanyang University can be found in Table 1. As mentioned above, this was a Mandarin-medium university. Names are given in Chinese characters (under the heading ‘Chinese’), and in romanised form (under the heading ‘English’). It would have been necessary to include the latter because this is the form found in official documents such as birth certificates, and could be used for disambiguation should there be names with the same characters. The picture that emerges is that of a very homogenous group. All the names are Chinese names and over 99 per cent of the names conform to the + format, romanised in an Englishised manner. Only two names appear in the format + : Lily Shaw (Miss) Nellie Tay (Miss) ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004


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Table 1. Names from Nanyang University (1960) Degree

Faculty of Arts Faculty of Science Faculty of Commerce

Total

With Englishbased GNs

Without Chinese-based GNs

With two English-based GNs

N

%

N

%

N

%

BA BSc BCom

179 119 46

1 1 0

0.6 0.8 0.0

1 1 0

0.6 0.8 0.0

0 0 0

0.0 0.0 0.0

Total

344

2

0.6

2

0.6

0

0.0

In both cases though, Chinese characters appeared in the ‘Chinese’ column, so it may be the case that the compiler has taken the liberty of omitting Chinese-based GNs where there are English-based GNs. There are three faculties in the university and there is no significant difference in the names of the students in the different faculties. Table 2 on the names in the English-medium University of Singapore, however, provides a more mixed picture. One significant difference is that a significant percentage of the names include English-based GNs (nearly one in five), with small numbers with two English-based GNs and without Chinese-based GNs. Although most students would have come through an English-medium education in school, it is of course not necessarily the case that they come from English-using families. It would seem not unreasonable to assume that most of those with English-based GNs are from English-using families, and Table 2. Names from University of Singapore (1968) Degree

Total

With two With English- Without English-based Chinesebased based GNs GNs GNs N

Faculty of Arts

BA (Honours) BA (pass) Faculty of Science BSc (Honours) BSc (pass) BPharm (Honours) BPharm (pass) School of Accountancy BBA (Honours) and Business BBA (pass) Administration BAccountancy Faculty of Law LLB Faculty of Medicine MBBS Faculty of Dentistry BDS Faculty of Engineering BEng Total ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

%

N

%

N

%

105 65 85 165 8 27 15 2 34 31 93 23 36

24 17 16 25 3 8 7 1 8 2 12 1 4

22.9 26.2 18.8 15.2 37.5 29.6 46.7 50.0 23.5 6.5 12.9 4.3 11.1

3 1 2 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0

2.9 1.5 2.4 2.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.9 0.0 2.2 0.0 0.0

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

689

128

18.6

13

1.9

1

0.1

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that English-using families might be inclined (or less disinclined) to bestow English-based GNs on their children. I have followed the format of the original list in breaking down the names according to faculties, and within the faculty the degrees awarded. Admission to the honours year in the bigger faculties, namely the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science, is competitive and those who perform well in the third-year examinations are invited to stay on for an additional year for the honours degree. There does not appear to be a significant difference between the pattern of names of those awarded honours degrees and those awarded pass degrees. A pattern that begins to emerge is that the figures for the two most common degrees – BA (with or without honours) and BSc (with or without honours) – are divergent. 24.8 per cent of those awarded a BA, compared to 16.4 per cent of those awarded a BSc, had English-based GNs. This is a pattern that is reproduced in the name lists to follow. We could surmise that subjects in the Faculty of Arts course favours those with a facility with the English language because of the importance placed on linguistic argumentation and expression. Technical explanations are emphasised more in the subjects in the Faculty of Science. We could then conclude that coming from an English-using family improves the chance of university admission, particularly in the Faculty of Arts. As these generalisations about the name spread are also true of the other name lists below, in subsequent tables I group together all the names within the same faculty regardless of the name of the degree or the sub-classification within the degree (honours, pass with merit or plain pass). The English-based GNs in the list generally conform to those found in Anglo-Saxon communities: Andrew, Irene, Mary and Margaret occur in at least four names. There is only one unorthodox item: Muni. Also noticeable are pet forms of names given as official names: Annie, Betty, Dolly, Gracie, Janie, Jenny, Ronnie, Rosie, Teddy and Willie. This might be part of the phenomenon of Singaporean English not making the same formalinformal distinctions as in other Englishes, as Adam Brown notes that in Singaporean English: ‘informal words sometimes occur – and stick out like a sore thumb – in formal texts, and vice versa’ (1999: 87). Aceto has also commented on the use of phonetically reduced forms of Spanish-derived given names (e.g. Dorinda > Dorie) in the island of Bastimentos in Panama (2002: 592). He relates this to the bilingualism in Bastimentos. I understand this to mean that reduced forms appear to temper the Spanishness of the name. A reduced form could also be easier for someone who is not fluent in the language. Not all the pet forms represent phonetic reductions though (e.g. Gracie < Grace), but a number certainly do (e.g. Betty < Elizabeth). These explanations seem to be plausible for the multilingual Singapore context. Elizabeth is more starkly English than Betty, and Betty is easier to pronounce for a speaker of a Chinese language who is not too fluent in English. Table 3 shows us the picture from the students graduating in 1983 from the then recently formed National University of Singapore, and initially it might seem that the trend towards giving English-based GNs has been reversed from 18.6 per cent to 16.0 per cent – a drop of nearly 3 per cent. If we also remember that this institution was a result of the merger between the two institutions mentioned earlier, the drop in percentage should be less surprising. The point that the naming tendencies are different in the various faculties seems to be reinforced by the data here, with the percentage of names with English-based GNs in all faculties enrolling students exceeding the average with the exception of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering, both with figures below 10 per cent. This contrasts ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004


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Table 3. Names from National University of Singapore (1983) Degree

Total With English- Without With two based Chinese-based English-based GNs GNs GNs N

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

BA (Honours and pass), BSocSc (Honours) Faculty of Science BSc (Honours and pass) School of Accountancy BAccountancy, and Business BBA (Honours Administration and pass) Faculty of Law LLB Faculty of Medicine MBBS Faculty of Dentistry BDS Faculty of Engineering BEng Faculty of Architecture, BArch, BA Building and Real Estate (Arch Studies), BSc (Building), BSc (Estate Management) Totals

570 134

%

N

%

N

%

23.5

5

0.9

5

0.9

60

9.5

3

0.5

0

0.0

590 104

17.6

9

1.5

4

0.7

61 107 40 430 158

26 29 11 31 19

42.6 27.1 27.5 7.2 12.0

3 1 0 5 2

4.9 0.9 0.0 1.2 1.3

2 3 0 0 0

3.3 2.8 0.0 0.0 0.0

2586 414

16.0

28

1.1

14

0.5

630

with the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), Medicine and Dentistry with percentages in their 20s, and indeed the Faculty of Law with the percentage being in the 40s. While we might discount Law, Medicine and Dentistry as small faculties, with the smaller numbers leading to unreliable figures, FASS, Science and Engineering are large faculties, with at least 400 names. This reinforces the point made earlier that different faculties might be drawing on rather different pools of students with differing home backgrounds. Recurring English-based GNs in the data include the following: David, Kenneth, Michael, Peter, Stephen and Vincent (all male names occurring five times each); Christina and Janet (female names occurring eight times each); Lily and Susan (six times); Linda and Margaret (five times). These are from the common stock of English-based GNs shared with speakers of Anglo Englishes. Pet forms of names continue to occur as official names, but as before these are in the minority: 32 names, forming 7.7 per cent of the Englishbased GNs. These include Eddie, Daisy, Jerry, Jessie, Judy (Jessica and Judith do not occur) and Sunny. About ten of the names appear to be invented names (e.g. Lenita (f), Larissa (f), Rayney (m), Shinta (f)) and five were spelt (deliberately, I assume) in unorthodox ways (e.g. Coreen (Corinne), Georjina (Georgina), Terrance (Terence)). Invented names and the use of unorthodox spellings also feature in names in Britain (Dunkling, 1993), so this is not distinctive of Singaporean English-based GNs. Finally, Table 4 shows the data from the students of the same university 17 years later. One additional column has been included in the analysis: whether the Chinese-based GNs appear in the pinyin format (as in Xiuqi mentioned above). None of the earlier names examined would have been in this format. The pinyin format is distinctive in having ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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Table 4. Names from National University of Singapore (2000) Degree

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Faculty of Science Faculty of Business Administration Faculty of Law Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Dentistry Faculty of Architecture, Building and Real Estate Totals

BA (Honours, pass with merit and pass), BSocSc (Honours) BSc (Honours,pass with merit and pass) BBA (Honours, pass with merit and pass) LLB MBBS (Honours and pass) BDS (Honours and pass) BA (Honours and pass), BSc (Honours)

Total

With Englishbased GNs

Without Chinesebased GNs

With two Englishbased GNs

With Chinesebased GNs in pinyin format

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

1783

775

42.3

42

2.4

35

2.0

13

0.7

965

286

29.6

21

2.2

3

0.3

9

0.9

503

178

35.4

15

3.0

3

0.6

7

1.4

137 145

78 64

56.9 44.1

4 5

2.9 3.5

1 4

0.7 2.8

0 4

0.0 2.8

31

15

48.4

1

3.2

2

6.5

0

0.0

293

82

28.0

4

1.4

2

0.7

4

1.4

3857

1478

38.3

92

2.4

50

1.3

37

1.0


381

disyllabic Chinese-based GNs fused as one word and allowing for particular combinations of letters. Therefore, the name Foo Cirong is classified as being in the pinyin format although the surname Foo is not in pinyin format. As only 1 per cent of Chinese-based GNs are in this format, this is still in the minority, but might begin to catch on more strongly (see below). The percentage of names with English-based GNs continues to climb so that about two in five (38.3%) of the names contain them now. This represents more than a two-fold increase from the data in 1983. The discrepancy between the percentages for FASS and the Faculty of Science noted earlier continues to be evident, although the Faculty of Science percentage has more than caught up with the FASS percentage of 1986. I noted the noninclusion of figures from Engineering, and if the lower percentage from 1986 is indicative of the percentage for Singaporean students in 2000, the omission might have caused the overall percentage (38.3) to be a little higher than in reality. Including second English-based GNs and omission of Chinese-based GNs continues to increase from the 1986 percentages but these are true of only a small minority of names. The top English-based GNs have changed. The top names for females are Sharon (28 occurrences), Serene (21), Karen (also spelt Caren, Karin, Caryn, 19), Michelle (Michele 19) and Adeline (Edeline, 17). The top names for males are Kelvin (15), Terence (15), Adrian (Adrain, 14), Daniel (13) and Kenneth (13). Invented names continue to occur, but remain a small minority (e.g., Anterina, Bibiana, Gracina, Glenford, Lavon, Praise, Vellyn and Xhann) and -lyn appears to be a productive element for forming new female names (Cherilyn, Cherylyn, Jessilyn, Joylyn, Kellyn, Nelyn, Sheralyn and Vellyn). As before, a small number of names are creatively spelt (e.g., Evonne [for Yvonne], Kassandra [for Cassandra] and Unice [for Eunice]). A small number of these ‘English-based’ GNs are actually more recent borrowings from other languages (Mario from Italian, Nelleke from Dutch, Uschi from German, although these are listed in Hanks and Hodges (1996)), together with more unusual names from the Bible (Jael, Hosea, Lamech). 8. CONCLUSION

The naming patterns of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore have changed, and a potent force of change is Englishisation. This is seen in the increased emphasis placed on Englishbased GNs: the proportion of the population having official English-based GNs has increased. Another manifestation of this is the increased occurrence of second Englishbased GNs or the omission of Chinese-based GNs (or both), although admittedly the percentage of the population having these features is very small. If we see personal naming patterns as being indicative of the community’s sense of identity or cultural outlook, we can say that the perspective of the ethnic Chinese community in Singapore has moved so that the English language and English-based GNs form a significant component in the make-up of the community. Part of this could be attributed to changes in religious affiliation within the community. Within the ethnic Chinese group, the percentage of Christians has risen from 10.9 (in 1980), through 14.3 (in 1990) to 16.5 (in 2000) (Singapore Census, 2000: 4). It would be fair to say that some of the English-based GNs are seen as Christian names. It is highly likely that the unusual Bible-based names mentioned above – Jael (mentioned in Judges 4), Hosea (the prophet of the eponymous book) and Lamech (mentioned in Genesis 4) – should be seen as Christian names. However, the percentage of the population with English-based GNs in the National University of Singapore (2000) data exceeds the ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

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percentage of Christian ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans, so that many of these English-based GNs should not be seen as Christian names. Also relevant will be the language shift patterns. Whilst the proportion of the population using Malay or Tamil as the most frequently spoken language at home has been fairly stable over the period 1980–2000, this is not the case for English and the Chinese languages. Table 5 (adapted from Pakir, 2004: 122) provides the percentage breakdown of the population (aged 5 or over) by the language most frequently spoken at home. It would appear that the shift has been from the non-Mandarin Chinese languages to English and Mandarin Chinese. In this light, the Englishisation and Mandarinisation (Teo, 2002) of personal names is understandable. The data however shows that there is some resistance to the kind of Mandarinisation and the full adoption of the pinyin-style name as in Lee Kuan Yew’s granddaughter’s name Li Xiuqi. Of additional interest is what this will have to contribute to the theory of dialect development. The Singaporean data seem to conform to the tendencies mentioned earlier in relation to patterns found in Hong Kong and the Philippines. It would appear that the adoption of English-style personal names through English-based GNs is a feature of English dialect development. Unlike the case of place names, it is less easy to place the Englishisation of personal names into a particular phase within Schneider’s theory of dialect development. If a significant proportion of the population are members of the settler community, as is the case in the Anglo Englishes (Australian English, Canadian English, etc.), this would be a non-issue as the settlers would carry with them English naming patterns. If, however, most of the population are members of the indigenous community, the tendency towards the Englishisation of personal names is worthy of interest. In the communities that we have looked at, it would appear that this has indeed occurred. It is also possible that some communities may be more resistant to this tendency, and what comes to mind is the Muslim community. However, in the absence of further research and data, I will not hazard to comment in this. In any kind of change, there is a period when the change gathers momentum before reaching a plateau stage, maybe receding after that. The description of the situation in South Africa suggests that it may be at the receding stage, whereas the data from Singapore suggests that it might be gathering momentum. The scalar, as opposed to absolute, nature of the change makes it difficult to relate this to any phase of dialect development. It would, presumably, be possible to designate a certain threshold level of Englishisation, but this strikes me as unnecessary and problematic. Englishisation might be realised through different means in different communities,

Table 5. Home language in Singapore LANGUAGE

1980

1990

2000

English Mandarin Chinese Other Chinese Malay Tamil Others

11.6 10.2 59.5 13.9 3.1 1.7

18.8 23.7 39.6 14.3 2.9 0.8

23.0 35.0 23.8 14.1 3.2 0.9



383

and establishing the way this can be measured is also likely to be fraught with difficulty, and in the final analysis, that threshold level must be arbitrary.

NOTES 1. For Chinese dialectologists, Hokkien and Teochew are Min dialects; Cantonese belongs to the Yue dialect. Elsewhere, Hokkien is also known as Fujian dialect, Amoy dialect, Taiwanese. Teochew is also known as Chiuchow and Chaozhou. 2. I use the example of Lee Kuan Yew’s family because he appears to be in the forefront of the Mandarinisation of names and has himself made various comments on the names of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore (see Jernudd, 1994: 126–7). 3. Versions of Lee Kuan Yew’s name that would be closer to the Mandarin pronunciation would be: Li Guangyao in pinyin and Li Kwang-yao in Wade-Giles (although of course pinyin would not have been available at the time). If it had been romanised according to Hakka Chinese pronunciation, the name would be Lee Kwong Yow or Li Kwong Yau (employing the ‘missionary’ romanisation as found in MacIver, 1970). 4. Gopinathan notes that ‘In December 1983, the [Singapore] Ministry of Education. . .announced that all pupils would be taught English as their first language by 1987’ (1998: 27–8). The Committee on Compulsory Education noted that by ‘1988, all government and government-aided schools offered the same curriculum, adopting English as the medium of instruction’ (2000: 3).

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