An Analytical Approach to Nomenclature in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

Abstract

This paper studies the names used in NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel We Need New Names through textual analysis and literary onomastics. It also examines the significance of names and tries to understand how naming is used as a technique for narrating the story and analyses the absence of proper names for addressing the protagonist’s language and the country. Names are indisputably essential elements in the formation of a person’s identity, especially the given name and the place name. Names have the primary function of distinguishing one from other. Therefore, human beings give prime importance to naming as we can see in many naming ceremonies across the world, making it a universal process. The role names perceive in literature is studied by many like Iraida Gerus-Tarnawecky, Martyna Gibka, Esther Igwenyi, Kyallo Wadi Wamitila, et al. Many have also shown their interest in studying the meanings of names and the different types of meanings like David Blair, Livingstone Makondo, and Staffan Nyström. This paper reveals the role perceived by names and their meaning in the novel We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.