Yoruba Personal Naming Practices and Their Sociolinguistic Significance in Lagos State

Personal naming in Yoruba culture is a sociolinguistically significant practice that encodes philosophical, religious, historical, and familial meanings within a single lexical unit. This study examines Yoruba personal naming practices and their sociolinguistic significance among urban and semi-urban populations in Lagos State, South West Nigeria. Using a mixed-methods design, data were collected through structured questionnaires administered to 200 parents of children aged between one and ten years across Mushin, Kosofe, and Lagos Mainland local government areas, supplemented by in-depth interviews with naming ceremony officiants and community elders. The study classifies names according to their semantic domains, naming occasions, and sociolinguistic functions. The theoretical framework draws on onomastics, sociolinguistic identity theory, and ethnopragmatics. Existing studies on Yoruba names have focused on semantic classification in rural or semi-urban settings, with limited attention to urban Lagos contexts where naming practices are influenced by religious, commercial, and pan-ethnic social forces. This study addresses that contextual gap. The research investigates whether urban parents in Lagos are maintaining traditional Yoruba naming conventions or shifting toward English, Islamic, or hybrid names, and what sociolinguistic motivations drive these choices. Findings are expected to reveal significant generational and religious influences on naming practices, with Pentecostal Christianity and Islam introducing novel naming trends. Recommendations will address the documentation and cultural education of Yoruba naming traditions in an urbanising society. Keywords: Yoruba names, naming practices, sociolinguistics, onomastics, Lagos State.