Mononym

A mononymous person is an individual who is known and addressed by a mononym,^[1] or "single name". In some cases, that name has been selected by the individual, who may have originally been given a polynym ("multiple name"). In other cases, it has been determined by the custom of the country^[2] or by some interested segment of the public.

History

The West

The structure of persons' names has varied across time and geography. In some communities, individuals have been mononymous; that is, each person has received only a single name. Alulim, first king of Sumer, is one of the earliest names known; Narmer, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, is another. Later, Biblical names were typically mononymous, as were names in the surrounding cultures of the Fertile Crescent. Ancient Greek names also followed the pattern, with second names only used to avoid confusion, as in the case of Zeno the Stoic and Zeno of Elea.

A notable departure from this custom occurred among the Romans, who by the Republican period and throughout the Imperial period used multiple names: a male citizen's name comprised three parts, praenomen (given name), nomen (clan name) and cognomen (family line within the clan) — the nomen and cognomen being virtually always hereditary.^[3] Post-antiquity most of them are, however, mononymous in most contexts: examples are Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus) or Juvenal (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis).

In other cultures the following can be named: Euripides, Xenophon, Aristotle and, further afield, Boudica and Jugurtha.

During the early Middle Ages, mononymy slowly declined, with northern and eastern Europe keeping to the tradition longer than the south; an example is Edeko, the eastern chieftan whose son ruled Italy as Flavius Odoacer. By the end of the period, however, surnames had become commonplace: Edmund Ironside, for example, ruled England, Brian Boru was over-king of Ireland, Kenneth MacAlpin had united Scotland, and even in Scandinavia surnames were taking hold.

The Americas

When Christopher Columbus arrived to the Americas most people had mononyms, a custom that survived as late as the 19th century (e.g., Geronimo, 1829–1909). Examples are Auoindaon (Canada, flourished 1623), Pocahontas (United States, 1595-1617), Guamá (Cuba, died 1532), Anacaona (Dominican Republic, 1464–1504), Moctezuma (Mexico, 1398–1469), Lempira (Honduras, died 1537), Gurutina (Costa Rica, fl. 1522), Diriangen (Nicaragua, fl. 1520), Urracá (Panama, died 1531), Tamanaco (Venezuela, died 1573), Petecuy (Colombia, fl. 1536), Atahualpa (Peru, 1497–1533), Taparica (Brazil, born c. 1465), Ancafilú (Argentina, died 1823), Lautaro (Chile, 1534–1557).

Post-medieval uses

Since the medieval period, mononyms in the west have almost exclusively been used to identify notable people who already had surnames. These nicknames were either adopted by the persons themselves or conferred by contemporaries.

France

Some French authors have shown a preference for mononyms. In the 17th century, the dramatist and actor Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622–73) took the mononym stage name "Molière".

In the 18th century, François-Marie Arouet took the mononym "Voltaire", for both literary and personal use, in 1718 after his imprisonment in Paris' Bastille, to mark a break with his past. The new name combined several features. It was an anagram for a Latinized version of his family surname, "Arouet, l[e] j[eune]"; it reversed the syllables of the name of a family château, "Airvault"; and it has implications of speed and daring through similarity with French expressions such as "voltige", "volte-face" and "volatile". "Arouet", on the other hand, would not serve the same purpose, given that name's associations with "roué" and with an expression that meant "for thrashing."^[4]

The 19th-century French author Marie-Henri Beyle used many pen names, most famously the mononym "Stendhal", adapted from the name of the little Prussian town of Stendal, birthplace of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whom Stendhal greatly admired.^[5]

In the 20th century, a fourth French writer, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (author of Gigi, 1945), used her actual surname as her mononymous pen name, "Colette".^[6]

Other European countries

The German writer, mining engineer and philosopher, Georg Friedrich Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801), became famous as Novalis.

The 19th-century Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820–87), better known by his mononymous pen name Multatuli (from the Latin multa tuli, "I have suffered [or borne] many things"), became famous for the satirical novel, Max Havelaar (1860), in which he denounced the abuses of colonialism in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). In 2002 Multatuli was proclaimed by the Society for Dutch Literature to have been the most important Dutch writer of all time.

The 20th-century British author Hector Hugh Munro became known by his pen name, "Saki".

In 20th-century Poland, the theater-of-the-absurd playwright, novelist, painter, photographer and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz after 1925 often used the mononymous pseudonym "Witkacy", a conflation of his surname (Witkiewicz) and middle name (Ignacy).^[7]

In the Soviet Union, both Lenin and Stalin are assumed names, for similar reasons. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov adopted the pen name Lenin while publishing anti-Tsarist propaganda in the 1910s, and was generally known as Lenin (or sometimes V.I. Lenin) after rising to power in the October Revolution. Iosef Besarionis dze Jughashvili assumed the pen name Stalin, from the Russian word for "steel", and was also generally known by this name after the revolution.

A number of visual artists, such as Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto and Caravaggio, are commonly known by mononyms. The modern Russian artist Erté formed his mononymous pseudonym from the initials of his actual name, as did the Belgian comics writers Hergé and Peyo.

Italian painter Bernardo Bellotto, who is now ranked as an important and original painter in his own right, traded on the mononymous pseudonym of his uncle and teacher, Antonio Canal (Canaletto), in those countries—Poland and Germany—where his famous uncle was not active, calling himself likewise "Canaletto." Bellotto remains commonly known as "Canaletto" in those countries to this day.^[8]

Mononymity was represented in photography, from that art's infancy, by Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon).

North America

The American writer of non-fiction and fiction, Rodney William Whitaker (1931–2005), is best known for some novels that he wrote under the mononym pen name, "Trevanian". The Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh was commonly known as "Karsh of Ottawa".

Royalty

Monarchs and other royalty, for example Napoleon, have traditionally availed themselves of the privilege of using a mononym, modified when necessary by an ordinal or descriptor (e.g., Queen Elizabeth II).^[9] While many European royals have formally sported long chains of names, in practice they have tended to use only one or two and not to use surname.^[10] In Japan, the emperor and his family have no surname, only a given name, such as Hirohito, which in practice is rarely used: out of respect and as a measure of politeness, Japanese prefer to say "the Emperor" or "the Crown Prince."^[11] In India, the first six Mughal emperors were known by just one name, adopted by each emperor upon his accession.

Popes have traditionally adopted a single name on their election.

Mononyms in modern times

Countries where mononyms are normal

The western style of having both a family name (surname) and a given name (Christian name or forename) is far from universal.

• Surnames were only introduced in Turkey after World War I
• In India it is very common for people born in rural areas to have only one name.
• Mononyms are also common in Indonesia, especially on Java, both for members of the ruling class such as Sukarno and Suharto and for commoners such as Rossa.

In Asia

In modern times, in countries that have long been part of the Chinese cultural sphere (Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China itself), mononyms are rare. A notable exception pertains to the Emperor of Japan. Mononyms are, however, common as stage names in the Japanese entertainment industry, usually when the performer's legal name is not publicly known; e.g., Ayaka, Becky, Gackt, hide, Hyde, Mana, Miyavi, Tsunku, and Yui. Also, Japanese baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki is widely known in both Japan and North America simply as "Ichiro".

In Hong Kong a few musicians are also known by mononyms, e.g., Janice,^[12] Jin, and Justin Lo (who uses the Chinese mononym, "側田"). In Korea, singers such as BoA, Rain and Shoo are known by their mononyms.

A single name remains common usage in India, with revered statesmen such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru being referred to as "Bapu" and "Panditji" respectively. Mayawati, current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh has chosen to use only one name. A professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, renowned for his research into photosynthesis, uses the mononym "Govindjee"; he rejected most of his familial names in rebellion against the caste system in his native land. Several Indian film personalities such as Sridevi, Rekha and Rajnikanth are known by their mononyms.

The people of Pakistan popularly refer to the founding father of the country Mohammad Ali Jinnah as Quaid-e-Azam which in Urdu means ("Great Leader").

The people of Bangladesh call Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Bongo-bondhu ("Friend of Bengal," in Bengali) because of his contribution to the liberation of Bangladesh.

Mononyms are also common in Indonesia, especially on Java, both for members of the ruling class such as Sukarno and Suharto and for commoners such as Rossa.

Single names still also occur in Tibet^[13] and Mongolia.^{[citation needed]} Most Afghans have no surname.^[14]

In Thailand, people usually address each other in informal situations by nicknames (chue-len or Thai: ชึ่อเล่น "play-name"). Given by parents or relatives in early childhood, these nicknames are typically one syllable (or worn down from two syllables to one). They may often be nonsense words or humorous, and usually have no relation to the person's actual name, although in some cases may be diminutive forms of their first name, like "Nok" for "Noknoi" which means respectively bird and little bird, the first used as nickname and the second being the first name. All Thais have such a name, even the royal family, and they are freely used in everyday life.^{[citation needed]}

Surnames were introduced in Turkey after World War I, as part of his westernizing and modernizing program, by that country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.^[15] His own surname, Atatürk, which was bestowed by the Turkish parliament, means "Father Turk."

In the West

{{citation}}: Empty citation (help) In the West, mononymity, as well as its use by royals in conjunction with titles, has been primarily a privilege of famous persons such as prominent writers, artists, entertainers, musicians and sportsmen.^[16][17]

Some persons, such as the artist Christo, the sculptor Chryssa, and the singer-songwriter Basia, have had polynymous names that were unwieldy, or unfamiliar and difficult to remember or to pronounce in the community in which they were currently active, but have not wanted to entirely change their names to something more familiar to the broad public at the cost of abandoning their sense of self-identification, and so have used only a single part of their full names.

Some mononym stage names are merely the performer's actual given name (e.g. Shakira, Ke$ha, Madonna), while others may be the performer's actual surname (e.g. Liberace, Mantovani, Morrissey). Mexican actor Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes invented for himself the pseudonym "Cantinflas." French actress Germaine Lefebvre adopted the pseudonym Capucine (French for "nasturtium").

In Lusophone countries such as Portugal, Angola and especially Brazil, football players often adopt a mononym (e.g. Deco, Pelé, Ronaldinho, Romário, Ronaldo, Adriano, Nani, Eusébio). In Spain, mononyms for football players are also very common; they include nicknames (Michel, Arteaga, Arzú), derivations of the player's surname (Coro, Guti), diminutives (Juanito, Pichi), or the player's first names (Xavi, Sergi, Raúl). Because there are a few very common surnames in Spain (García, Pérez, López, Hernández), the use of mononyms makes it easier to distinguish between the many Garcías and Pérez on each team. Mononyms are occasionally used by players from other countries, for example the Venezuelan Miku and the Ivorian Gervinho.

Similarly the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is known simply as "Lula", a nickname he officially added to his full name. Such mononyms, which take their origin in given names, surnames or nicknames, are used because Portuguese names tend to be rather long.

In Latin America, it is common for cartoonists to take mononyms—for example, the Argentinians Quino, Tute and Liniers, the Brazilians Angeli, Henfil, Ziraldo and Jaguar, the Chilean Pepo, and the Mexicans Adis, Trino, Magu, Kabeza, Rius, Rictus and Tormentas.

The comedian and illusionist Teller, the silent half of the duo Penn & Teller, has legally changed his original polynym, "Raymond Joseph Teller", to the mononym "Teller" and possesses a United States passport issued in that single name.^[18]

Some individuals have selected their mononym themselves, when they have been able to do so, because of its distinctiveness. Others have come to be known by a mononym that has been applied to them by some segment of the public. Both mechanisms contributed in the case of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been called, and has publicly called herself, simply "Hillary". Peter Funt, of Candid Camera, wrote in a February 21, 2007, New York Times op-ed piece, "The Mononym Platform": "Someone has apparently decided that Mrs. Clinton will be the first major single-name candidate since 1952, when Ike's P.R. gurus realized that 'Eisenhower' was tough to fit on a bumper sticker... In an apparent attempt to model her marketing on the likes of Madonna, Beyonce and Cher, Mrs. Clinton's site proclaimed: 'Today, Hillary took the first step...'..."^[19] In an interview with Hillary Clinton published in Salon.com, the interviewer acknowledged receiving reader accusations of sexism whenever he referred to Clinton in print as "Hillary" (in contrast with male candidates who were almost always referred to by their last names), although he stated it was primarily to avoid confusion with her husband Bill Clinton.^[20]

Oprah Winfrey, famed American talk show host, is usually referred to by only her first name, Oprah. In Canada, Senator Nancy Ruth had previously dropped her family name of Jackman, using both of her remaining names together as a mononym instead of using "Ruth" as a family name.^[21] She is alphabetized under "N," not "R", on the Senate website.^[22]

Gallery

See also

• List of legally mononymous people
• List of one-word stage names
• List of pseudonyms
• One-name study, a project researching a specific surname

Notes

References

• Encyclopedia Americana, Danville, CT, Grolier, 1986 ed., ISBN 0-7172-0117-1.
• Encyklopedia Polski (Encyclopedia of Poland), Kraków, Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 1996, ISBN 83-86328-60-6.
• Richard Holmes, "Voltaire's Grin", New York Review of Books, November 30, 1995, pp. 49–55.
• Richard Holmes, Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer, New York, HarperCollins, 2000.
• William Smith (lexicographer), Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities..., 1860–65.
• Peter Wetzler, Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision-Making in Prewar Japan, University of Hawaii Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8248-1166-6.

External links

• Peter Funt, "The Mononym Platform", The New York Times, February 21, 2007.
• Penn & Teller FAQ (Internet Archive).