My God is greater than the soothsayer: The conceptualisation of Chim in contemporary Igbo personal names

Abstract

This article examines the ideological undertones embedded in religion-based personal names among Igbo-speaking Pentecostal Christians in Aba, Abia State, south-eastern Nigeria. Ethnographic data were generated by interviewing 20 purposively sampled participants. Data were analysed using Ainiala and Östman’s socio-onomastics theory, which studies names based on their sociocultural context. This investigation demonstrates how name giver’s Christian beliefs incarnate themselves in their naming practices. Besides that, the names given to children illuminate how Pentecostal Christians introduce a system of naming where name givers personalise contemporary Igbo-Christian names by shifting from the general Chi (God) to the personal Chim ‘my God’. This shift functions to draw the boundary between ‘self’ and ‘others’ and is believed to offer opportunities for self-reflection and dialogue with God. Also, it provides insights into implicit gender biases and subjectivities in terms of the preference for male children over female ones. The study further reveals that among Igbo Christians this category of derived names is highly valued because it provides spiritual insights and understanding of the mysteries of life on a more personal level.