The Problem of Personal Names As a Universal Element In Culture

Sticks and stones may break my bones But names can never hurt me.

Psycho-analytic research on names has been confined to (a) a demonstration of the various reaction formations that people develop toward their names and (b) confirmation in modern cases of the primitive magical attitude to names. What remains to be done is an investigation of the sources of naming itself, its instinctual sources and universal significance in culture. This article is a venture in that direction.

Personal names are sure to be found in any inventory of cultural items which are common to all known societies.1 Contemporary anthropologists would place reports of peoples without personal names in the same category of legend or insufficiently investigated material together with the reports of peoples without fire or ethical standards. In the writings of investigators before World War I, we read statements like this:

“The name is a symbol of individuality; it is only among the lowest races on the face of the earth, such as the bushmen of South Africa, that there are no personal names, because amongst such as these the desire for distinguishing individuals from the general stock is not felt.”2

Theories of cultural evolution required and still require a prehistoric phase in which human beings had no names.

“At one time both men and gods were, strictly speaking, nameless.”3 The people who reported on primitive communities were sometimes misled by the secrecy which often attached