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The Fifth Floor: Naming Names on the Fifth Floor

Documentaries

David Amanor and members of the BBC's language services (credit: BBC)

29/12/2017 GMT

Naming Names on the Fifth Floor

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Naming Names on the Fifth Floor

What's in a name? Big names, no names, nicknames, tricky names, taboos and trends

David Amanor and guests savour the year's names: names in the news, sensitive names, taboo names, lucky names, nicknames, and their own names.

Naming names on the Fifth Floor.  David Amanor celebrates the power - and fun - of names, with Sucheera Maguire of BBC Thai, Famil Ismailov of BBC Russian, Janay Boulos of BBC Arabic, Cagil Kasapoglu of BBC Turkish, Roberto Belo Rovella of BBC Mundo, Shoaib Sharifi of BBC Afghan, Mohanad Hashim of BBC Africa, and Najiba Kasraee of the BBC Academy.

Nicknames
Somalis love nicknames, as the world discovered last February with the election of 'President Cheese' - Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo Mohamed.  David is given a Somali-style nickname, and hears from Sucheera Maguire about the Thai tradition of nicknames.

The name in my news
Which name has dominated the news in your region?  For BBC Russian's Famil Ismailov, it has to be President Vladimir Putin.  Janay Boulos of BBC Arabic nominates President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.   And Cagil Kasapoglu of BBC Turkish chooses two - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his sworn enemy, the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. 

My name, my identity
In some cultures, names can reveal whole stories about family, ethnicity or religion.  Janay Boulos and Famil Ismailov explain what their names say about them, and Cagil Kasapoglu remembers her surprise at the sensitivity of asking someone their name in Lebanon. 

The politics of naming
BBC Korean was launched this year, but choosing its name proved tricky.  Najiba Kasraee of the BBC Academy explains why.  Plus Roberto Belo Rovella sheds light on why Uruguayans call themselves 'oriental'. 

Choosing names
Astrologers and warlords - the finer points of choosing a child's name in Thailand and Afghanistan, with Sucheera Maguire and Shoaib Sharifi.

The nameless
Long-established taboos in some cultures mean that husbands and wives never address each other by their first names.  Shoaib Sharifi describes the tradition in Afghanistan, and a recent campaign to change it.

Image: David Amanor and members of the BBC's language services
Credit: BBC

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