There’s power in a name (Power?) There’s a name of power for everything (Well spell it out for me) There’s power in a shape (This just doesn’t add up) And information in the form you take (Yeah? What do you know about power?) - The song Mathematic(k) by selki girl is part of a larger project to explore trans* relationality to Western Esotericism. It posits that there is logic, power, geometry, mathematics, and magic in trans* people’s names.
What work does a name do pedagogically? What power and positionality does it place with the named and the namer? These are the questions that I am seeking to interrogate in this paper. To do this, I will be incorporating perspectives on naming and renaming from global indigenous studies and trans* youth studies. In doing so, we will discover that (re)naming is emblematic of power-laden relationships, and that there is liberatory pedagogical potentiality in indigenous and trans* renaming.
The onomastics of indigenous people and trans* people (and let’s not forget indigenous trans* people) are complicated, nuanced, and under-researched. This essay cannot be a comprehensive guide to this subject, but instead it will be a brief introduction to the topic that can serve as an entry for further exploration. It will first explore indigenous perspectives on the decolonizing process of (re)naming places in Africa and North America. Then, it will examine the influence the church and the state has on indigenous Sami names. This will be followed by discussion of trans* youth onomastic ghosts and trans* (re)naming as (re)claiming ethnicity. The essay will conclude with remarks on pedagogical takeaways from this research.
While researching for this project, I searched extensively for indigiqueer and particularly two-spirit perspectives on names and (re)naming. I wasn’t able to find any reputable indigenous sources on the topic, which I think shows both the extent of ongoing marginalization of indigenous trans* people as well as the need for research and literature on the topic. I understand that without this vital perspective my writings on this topic cannot be complete, and hope that more work will be done on indigenous trans* onomastics.
Indigenous toponymy and the (re)naming of place shows us the power of names as tools of sovereignty and decolonization. Toponyms can be used both to reclaim indigenous land relationships and to honor indigenous peoples’ struggles against settler colonialism (Hill, 2021; Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015).
The maintenance of indigenous place names is important to keep indigenous sovereignty and indigenous spatial imaginaries alive. Indigenous place names are often not acknowledged in settler society, where they are replaced by settler names that reflect a different imaginary without respect of indigenous sovereignty (Hill, 2021; Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015). Indigenous toponyms are also often distorted to fit the orthographic and phonological constraints of settler languages (Helander, 1997; Uluocha, 2015). Both of these practices erase indigenous meaning making and culture.
Often indigenous place names carry significance because they relay an indigenous understanding of land and environments (Roden, 1974; Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015). In Uganda, for example, indigenous toponyms related to the form of landscape and its land use are very prominent, showing that the indigenous people there find significance in the morphologies and functions of the land (Roden, 1974; Uluocha, 2015). Indigenous place names also often carry spiritual and cosmological significance, which further displays their significance in indigenous cultural ecologies (Rose-Redwood, 2016). Renaming toponyms is a way to reclaim indigenous land relationships (Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015). Otherwise, as Uluocha (2015) writes, “most of the foreign toponyms that places and features bear in [colonized geographies] today are locally and linguistically incomprehensible.”
Renaming efforts spearheaded by indigenous and colonized communities often show the complicated power dynamics at play between indigenous and non-indigenous populations as well as the colonized and colonizers (Hill, 2021; Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015). Native Spokane scholar Margo Hill (2021) wrote extensively about the effort to rename a street in the city of Spokane in her article "No Honor in Genocide". This street was named after Colonel George Wright, a United States military officer who contributed to the ethnic cleansing and genocide of local indigenous peoples. Local organizers successfully pushed to rename that street after Whis-talks, a female Spokane warrior who fought against settler incursion. This renaming decolonized an honorific relationship the city maintained with settler colonialism and replaced it with a symbol of indigenous resistance and native women’s liberation. Hill attributes the success of this campaign in part to the national Black Lives Matter movement. This displays the importance of renaming across various lines of political struggle. Renaming can also hold spiritual and cosmological significance, especially if pre-colonial names are used (Rose-Redwood, 2016; Uluocha, 2015).
The Sami are a indigenous Uralic language speaking group who are native to the northernmost parts of mainland Europe. The Germanic people who occupy parts of their ancestral lands (namely Swedes and Norwegians) historically persecuted them for having non-Christian pegan worldviews. Traditional Sami names were not tolerated by the church, and as such the Sami were made to take non-pegan names. Although native name forms continue to exist, the names used in these forms now largely have Christian and Germanic origin (Helander, 1997).
In 1901, the Swedish government mandated the usage of fixed ancestral surnames which were tied to naming conventions associated with the clergy and nobility. This was in part to ‘modernize’ and expand the role of the state. These conventions were imposed on both rural Swedish commoners who often had their own naming conventions (Klein, 2022) as well as the Sami, in an attempt to replace both group’s naming conventions (Helander, 1997; Klein, 2022).
It was not until 1977 that traditional Sami name forms were allowed to be used on official state documents in Norway, although as of the mid 90’s most Sami people in Norway still used the form imposed on them for state documents. Despite this, when speaking the Sami language, the Sami have continued to use their traditional name forms, in resistance to Christian and state imposition. There has also been a resurgence of Sami names given to children, including pre-Christian and pegan names (Helander, 1997).
Julia Sinclair-Palm’s 2017 article “It’s Non-Existent” is about the lived experience of an 18 year old Trinidadian/French Canadian trans man named Tye. Like many trans people, Tye always knew he was trans. He insists that the person associated with his birth-name, Tiffany, does not exist. Sinclair-Palm relates this, and the popular term “deadname,” to the notion of “ghostly figures.” In this view, Tye is “haunted” by the ghost of Tiffany, and to force him to see and acknowledge Tiffany in a context he doesn’t want to is a form of psycho-spiritual violence (Sinclair-Palm, 2017).
As a 19 year old trans* youth, I have a different relationship with my present name and my birth-name than Tye. I don’t identify my birth-name as a deadname. This is because every time someone uses it, it renders that part of me and my identity alive and existent again. I certainly prefer that people not use it, but while I live with my family and they continue to use it regardless of my desires, I do not have the privilege of considering it dead. I can’t allow myself to be haunted by that ghost at this moment, because I will be forced to undergo the psycho-spiritual violence of facing it repeatedly.
Esperanto is an international auxiliary language constructed by Polish Jew L. L. Zamenhof in response to increased hypernationalism in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Komencanto, my chosen name, is an Esperanto word which means beginner. When I chose my name, I strongly considered what its connection to my heritage would be. I felt that it needed to be a European name, as all my ancestors are European, but I didn’t want it to just be representative of only one European ethnicity, because I am not descended from just one ethnicity. This is why I chose a name from the language Esperanto, which I studied when I was 15.
I know other trans people have also used their chosen names to reclaim ethnicity. One of my best friends is trans masc and chose a name that better reflects his Lebanese and Syrian ancestry than his euro-American birth-name. Also, an Irish-American trans woman I’ve met renamed herself explicitly to reclaim her Irish heritage in opposition to her English birth-name. I couldn’t find any writing on this practice, but it seems apparent to me that it is a phenomenon that needs more research.
I think there is a true artistic and pedagogical value to the naming conventions I have laid out above, and discussing them together in this context itself has pedagogical weight. If there is one thing you should take away from this essay it is this: names hold power. Until we are able to unpack that power and deconstruct its relationalities, we are doing a disservice to all those who are oppressed by normative and colonial naming structures, be they indigenous, trans*, neither, or both.
One thing that displaying all of these naming issues and conventions together does pedagogically is show the similarities and differences in indigenous and trans* onomastic issues. For indigenous communities, often the goal is to return to original names or naming patterns before colonization, whereas for trans people, the goal is often the opposite—to reject an “original” name. Although this is sometimes flipped, with trans people seeking a name that better reflects their heritage and indigenous communities creating new post-colonial orthonyms.
Presenting both indigenous and trans* perspectives of naming together creates potentialities of solidarity and understanding between these communities, where lines of oppression are too often seen as disparate or entirely disjoint. It also allows us to draw attention to the unique issues of trans* indigenous people, such as the fact that they face very high rates of (state) violence in the United States. This understanding of intersectionality can also be broadened further than the scope of this paper to include comprehension of the powers re(naming) holds for non-indigenous people of color, women, disabled people, children, and others.
There really is power in a name and information in the forms we take, as the first quote from selki girl states. As such, the linkages between orthonyms, ontology, and materiality must be acknowledged. Names are, in fact, social constructs which metaphysically map themselves onto material reality, but they are not merely that. Instead, they allow for new, creative, and always power laden ways of being. They open up space and people to new potentialities of materiality. A decolonized toponym reflects a change in the power dynamic of a space and the ridding of (settler) colonial domination of it, opening it up to new decolonized material realities. Similarly, a chosen name for a trans* person often reflects the ridding of cisnormative expectations from their identity, opening of various queer material potentialities.
In conclusion, names and renaming can teach us about power, solidarity, indigeneity, decolonization, trans* identity, queerness, post-colonialism, spirituality, the state and church, and cultural ecologies. It is our responsibility to take those lessons and pedagogical tools and use them to create a more just world.
References Helander, N. Ø. (1997). State Languages as a Challenge to Ethnicity in the Sami Land. Senri Ethnological Studies, 44, 147–159. http://doi.org/10.15021/00002954 Hill, M. (2021). No Honor in Genocide: A Case Study of Street Renaming and Community Organizing in the Wake of National Decolonization Efforts. Journal of Hate Studies, 17(1), 85–107. https://doi.org/10.33972/jhs.200 Klein, K. (2022, May 23). When the Government Makes You Get a surname. YouTube. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://youtu.be/58u5Sa-UVi0 Roden, D. (1974). Some Geographical Implications from the Study of Ugandan place-names. East African Geographical Review, 12, 77–86. Rose-Redwood, R. (2016). “Reclaim, Rename, Reoccupy”: Decolonizing Place and the Reclaiming of PKOLS. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 15(1), 187–206. Sinclair-Palm, J. (2017). “It’s Non-Existent”: Haunting in Trans Youth Narratives about Naming. Occasional Paper Series, 2017(37), 1–12. Uluocha, N. O. (2015). Decolonizing Place-names: Strategic imperative for preserving indigenous cartography in post-colonial Africa. African Journal of History and Culture, 7(9), 180–192. https://doi.org/10.5897/ajhc2015.0279
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