The Study Of Names From The Perspective Of Social Constructivism

Names are intimately related with our practical life. With a name, a person can study, work and live normally in our society. Names not only act as signs of individuals, but also have many other social functions, like distinguishing kinships, specifying marriages and dividing classes. They are significant objects of sociological study.This paper, based on culture sociology, in terms of social constructivism, taking 5000 names on 7 genealogies as main materials and 20 interviews as secondary materials, examines the structural factors behind the han people’s naming.In social constructivism opinion, although knowledge is actively constructed by individuals and comes from personal experiences, people can’t create it freely. It requires consultations to reach agreement with others. Of course, it is inevitably influenced by the social and cultural factors.By analyzing the impacts of gender, family, politics and social class on names, we find, names are not pure personal creations, but the results of social construction. Behind them, there are a set of social rules. These rules restrict the content and form of names, limit the owners’ social identities, statuses, rights and obligations, and provide guidance for owners’ actions. In essence, names are symbol system with the function of social classification.Names distinguish people’s gender roles, family relations, birth ages and social backgrounds.The conclusion of this paper reveals the role of social structure in the naming process, and clarifies people’s naming preferences and naming rules. At the same time, compared to the previous studies, a major innovation of this article is to investigate the influence of class factors on names, enriching the content and developing the vision of name research.