Anthroponymy in the municipality of Dande, Bengo province in Angola: tendency to value local languages in the naming process

Abstract

The birth of a child brings challenges such as choosing a name, indispensable mark of the ‘birth’ event. The general objective: to characterize the proper names seeking to understand the valorization the Bantu and Khoisan languages ​​in the naming process in Dande. Specific objectives: to investigate the composition of people’s names in Angola, in light of the Constitution; to describe the composition of the names collected, using tables and graphs; to analyze these names, considering the Law nº10/77 and Angolan languages. We used, documentary and bibliographic methodologies. We analyzed 1,011 names of students enrolled at the Instituto Médio Politécnico do Bengo, in the 2024 year. The names are presented in groups: full names with all names in Portuguese; full names with all names in Bantu languages; full names with first name in Portuguese and last name in Bantu languages; full names with first name in Bantu languages ​​and last name in Portuguese; full names with first name in a foreign language and last name in a Bantu language; and full name with first name in a Bantu language and last name in a foreign language. This organization allowed the projection of statistics and frequencies of these names, aiming at their analysis. Concludes that the name is a socio-historical, cultural, political product, associated with a certain language, carrying a cultural load of a people.