Surnames as Markers of Identity among the Yorùbá Sub-Ethnic Group Members

Abstract

In this paper, we examine surnames that serve as markers of identity among some Yorùbá subethnic group members. We show that this present work is different from the previous works because the earlier works focused on Yorùbá personal names in general, and the present work locates the Yorùbá surnames within particular sub-ethnic groups to show that though all the names described in the previous works are Yorùbá names the previous works do not distinguish tradition-based names that are today surnames and also do not tell us where the names can be found within the Yorùbá sub-ethnic groups. We argue that surnames form one of the parameters that can be used to distinguish the Yorùbá sub-ethnic group members from one another. We also show that surnames which indicate Yorùbá sub-ethnic group affinities are tradition-based personal names and that each of the tradition-based surnames is structurally a combination of a noun phrase and a simple clause or a noun phrase and a simple clause.