Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of maps -- List of tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction: The cultural aspect of personal names -- Section One: The ethnopragmatics of anthroponyms -- Chapter 2 'Father of the spotted cow': Hamar titles and their connection to cattle appearance -- Chapter 3 The shell and the essence: Name transfer among the Hinihon -- Chapter 4 Personal names and motivations for name-giving in western Paraná state, Brazil -- Chapter 5 Nicknames as a socio-cultural phenomenon among Lithuanian youth -- Section Two: Personal naming and cultural transissions -- Chapter 6 The naming gamble: Unique versus common given names -- Chapter 7 From "sprinkling" a blessing to audaciously appropriating a name: Some reflections concerning personal names and naming in the central highlands of Madagascar -- Chapter 8 Organising diversity: Naming groups and their languages in Indigenous Australia -- Chapter 9 Names they left behind: Remembering the times with the White farmers in some parts of Chimanimani and Chipinge in Zimbabwe -- Section Three: Anthroponyms as religious belief and practice -- Chapter 10 This baby's name is 'Leaf' or 'Garbage heap': Reading the figurative in selected death prevention names among the Bakonzo -- Chapter 11 Tibetan elements in spirit names in Dongbaism and Dabaism -- Chapter 12 The appropriation of animal names as personal names in Ibibio and Tiv onomastic traditions in Nigeria: An ethnopragmatic study -- Chapter 13 A structural study of Basà death prevention names -- Section Four: Cultural implications in anthroponym typology -- Chapter 14 Typology and motivations for Azerbaijani personal names -- Chapter 15 The grammar of personal names in Saaroa -- Chapter 16 Personal names and naming in Tongan language and culture -- Chapter 17 A descriptive account of the modern Mazahuan onomastic system -- Chapter 18 Gender intimations in the morphology of some Ndebele personal names -- Notes on contributors -- Index