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Naming Names on the Fifth Floor

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 麻豆官网首页入口 Thai, Famil Ismailov of 麻豆官网首页入口 Russian, Janay Boulos of 麻豆官网首页入口 Arabic, Cagil Kasapoglu of 麻豆官网首页入口 Turkish, Roberto Belo Rovella of 麻豆官网首页入口 Mundo, Shoaib Sharifi of 麻豆官网首页入口 Afghan, Mohanad Hashim of 麻豆官网首页入口 Africa, and Najiba Kasraee of the 麻豆官网首页入口 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 麻豆官网首页入口 Russian's Famil Ismailov, it has to be President Vladimir Putin. Janay Boulos of 麻豆官网首页入口 Arabic nominates President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. And Cagil Kasapoglu of 麻豆官网首页入口 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
麻豆官网首页入口 Korean was launched this year, but choosing its name proved tricky. Najiba Kasraee of the 麻豆官网首页入口 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 麻豆官网首页入口's language services
Credit: 麻豆官网首页入口

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41 minutes

Last on

Fri 29 Dec 2017 18:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Fri 29 Dec 2017 12:06GMT
  • Fri 29 Dec 2017 16:06GMT
  • Fri 29 Dec 2017 18:06GMT