Personal names & socio-political changes - naming trends in the capital of Albania

 

ANS 2023, January 22, 2023 "Personal names and socio-political changes - a study of naming trends in the capital of Albania, Tirana (1907-2017)" by Linda Mëniku (University of Tirana, Albania) Personal names reflect changes in societal values, personal tastes, and cultural diversity. In this paper, we use information from the Institute of Statistics of Albania (http://www.instat.gov.al) about the top 5 names, to compare the patterns of personal names in Tirana, the capital of Albania to the general patterns of personal names in Albania from 1907-2017 and to explore how the political and social changes have influenced the name choices. Vogues in name usage can be easily shown through the top 5 names, by plotting the rise and fall in their popularity over time. We analyze the connection between naming trends and important historical events in Tirana (before being proclaimed the capital of Albania, 1907-1920, and afterwards) and in Albania: the Independence of Albania, the end of the Second World War, the Communist regime and the transition period after 1990. The data show that trends in personal names can provide important perspectives on political and cultural changes in Albania. LINDA MËNIKU is a Linguistics Professor at Tirana University, Albania. She teaches at the Departments of Linguistics and Journalism, at the University of Tirana, where she specializes in discourse analysis, text linguistics, Albanian as a foreign language, and media discourse. She has been teaching Albanian courses at Arizona State University, CLI, since 2003. She is the author of “The Gheg Reader,” published by Dunwoody Press, “Discovering Albanian,” published by Winsconsin University Press and “Colloquial Albanian,” published by Routledge.