Cultural Traditions of Naming in African American Fiction

Abstract

The cultural “aphasia†of African Americans is named with “cultural shock†by the academia. And the United States is a multiculture coexistence society. In such a “new, developing and constantly changing society,†the definition of ego and the search for ego are a long-term and universal proposition. As African cultures wander through embarrassing intersections with American mainstream culture, African-Americans are baffled because of ego identity. And to some extent, the loss of a name that usually contains a cultural mark or the family elder’s name represents the loss of an organizational system and the process of naming and renaming shows a profound recovery of far-reaching organizational system on African-American status. Naming and renaming are critical to individual rebuilding. Finding one’s own name is necessary to discover one’s identity. The name is not only a mark or symbol given by others, but also a recognition of self-existence. African Americans attach great importance to the name and think that the name is part of their personality and soul.