Child is gold: the construction of childhood in Igbo personal naming practices

In the Igbo universe of meaning, childhood is a social construction that occupies a significant position in the cultural framework of society. Children’s roles as social actors and carriers of the heritage of the past are deeply entrenched in the Igbo anthroponomastic system. This article examines the symbolic construction of childhood in personal naming practices among the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. The study relies on the ethnopragmatic paradigm, which deals with culture-internal, inherent meaning-making sense of language. It is constitutive of locally interpretable events and speech practices. Qualitative data were sourced through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants who were purposively sampled in Ezinihitte, Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State and Gwagwalada, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The study identifies some resonating themes in children-related names that situate children as subjects in space, place and time in the Igbo cultural script. The study maintains that children are constructed through the prism of naming as economic assets, cultural treasures, sources of emotional relief and embodiments of power and influence. We conclude that the various portrayals of children are used to symbolize continuity and the flow of life in the Igbo sociological imagination.