Wealth is King: The Conceptualization of Wealth in Igbo Personal Naming Practices

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Personal names among the Igbo people of South-eastern Nigeria can also be understood and contextualized within the fringes of their cultural values, worldviews, emotions, and economic resources. This article explores the conceptualization of wealth in Igbo personal naming practices from an ethnopragmatic paradigm, which uncovers the hidden meanings underlying the interpretation of language. Drawing on ethnographic data sourced through participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations with 30 participants (name-bearers, givers, and users) in the eastern heartland of Owerri (Imo State) and Abuja, Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory, we contextualize the pattern of wealth-inspired names among the Igbo as symbolic capital aimed at securing the welfare and future life trajectories of their bearers. We conclude that the concept of wealth has an intrinsic value among the Igbo for social class distinction, and it is reinscribed in the onomastic system to reflect parental aspirations for enduring social status, positioning, and belonging in the institutionalized class system. In this way, Igbo personal names function as economic resources for identity construction and social status classification.