Ethnography of Naming as a Religious Identity: Case of Antakya

Antakya is the central district of Hatay Province located in the eastern Mediterranean Region. Once populated by a variety of different ethno-religious communities, today it is still a place where Jewish, Christian, Sunni Muslim, and Arab Alevi (Nusayri) communities live together. This study is aimed at gaining insight into the naming preferences and naming rituals among different religious communities with a comparative perspective. The key question this study seeks to answer is how the religious belief to which people belong affects the names they are given and how the religious community draws a line between "self" and "other" based on the name. Names given to children or avoided as a taboo in different communities give the hints of a faith-based cultural memory a community established with its past. In this study, which is built on ethnography, field study method was utilized, and interviews were conducted with people from different communities. These interviews provided detailed insights into the variables people consider in naming their children, whether or not the religious identity to which they belong is influential in choosing a name, the naming experiences and rituals.