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A necronym (from the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
words , , "dead", and , , "name") is the
name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...
of or a reference to a person who has died. Many
culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
s have
taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
s and
tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...
s associated with referring to the deceased, ranging from at one extreme never again speaking the person's real name, bypassing it often by way of circumlocution, to, at the other end, mass commemoration via naming other things or people after the deceased. For instance, in some cultures it is common for a newborn child to receive the name (a necronym) of a relative who has recently died, while in others to reuse such a name would be considered extremely inappropriate or even forbidden. While this varies from culture to culture, the use of necronyms is quite common.


Use

In
Ashkenazi Jew Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
ish culture, it is a custom to name a child after a beloved relative who died as a way of honoring the deceased. Often the child will share the same
Hebrew name A Hebrew name is a name of Hebrew origin. In a more narrow meaning, it is a name used by Jews only in a religious context and different from an individual's secular name for everyday use. Names with Hebrew origins, especially those from the ...
as the namesake but not the given name in the vernacular language (e.g. English). For most practicing Jews it is taboo to name a child after a person who is still living. In
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
families usually obtain a necronym, called a '' kaimyō'', for a deceased relative from a Buddhist priest in exchange for a donation to the temple. Traditionally, the deceased were thereafter referred to by the necronym, as a sign of pious respect. This name was often the only one inscribed on gravestones in the past, though now it is more common to have the necronym in addition to the given name. In
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
and
Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
, children were often given "substitute-names", necronyms of deceased family members, to keep the dead's names and identities alive. Evidence suggests that the desire for children may have been motivated by the desire to pass on these necronyms. During the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, necronyms were commonly used as a means of protecting an
intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a member of the intelligence field employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a r ...
's true identity. For example, the
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
agent Konon Molody was only known as Gordon Lonsdale (the true Lonsdale was a
Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
born two years after Molody who died in 1943 when he was 19) in the United States. Molody adopted the name when he was 32, 11 years after the real Lonsdale's death.


Historiography

The practice of bestowing necronyms has sometimes caused confusion for
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
s. This is primarily because of the two birth certificates or records that could be present at a given time. This confusion often stems from the inability to differentiate between the records of each child. One such example is the case of Shigechiyo Izumi (1865?–1986), accepted in 1986 as the world's oldest man by '' The Guinness Book of World Records''; it is suggested that he was possibly born in 1880 and the birth certificate of a brother whose name he assumed upon his death was submitted in place of Izumi's own.


Examples

* Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
, born in 1770, had a brother named Ludwig Maria who was born in 1769 and lived for only six days. *
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
had a brother of the same name who was born, and died, on March 30, 1852, exactly one year before the painter's birth. * Artist
Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
was born nine months and ten days after his brother, also named Salvador, died from gastroenteritis at the age of one year and nine months. *
NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...
driver John Hunter Nemechek was named after his uncle John Nemechek, who died in a crash at Homestead-Miami Speedway about three months before John Hunter was born. * Musician Richard David James, known better as Aphex Twin, claims he had a stillborn older brother named Richard, from whom he inherited his name. The Aphex Twin moniker is also a tribute to his legacy, though this fact in general might be fabricated. * Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., born in 1914, the fifth child of
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
, shared the name with the future U.S. President's third child, who was born in 1908 and died the following year.


See also

* Deadname *
Posthumous name A posthumous name is an honorary Personal name, name given mainly to revered dead people in East Asian cultural sphere, East Asian culture. It is predominantly used in Asian countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. ...
* Taboo against naming the dead


References


Further reading

* {{Personal names Cultural aspects of death Human names