IGBO CULTURAL NAMING PATTERNS AND WESTERN RELIGION IN SELECTED COMMUNITIES IN AWKA-SOUTH ANAMBRA STATE SOUTH-EASTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper examined the culture jam between the Igbo cultural naming patterns and western religion and the resultant conflicting ideologies, meanings, and symbols. The Igbo culture is very unique. This very evident in their different ways of life and particularly in names given to villages, title holders, names given to persons at birth and even names given to married women by their husbands. All these and others were disrupted with the advent of western religion. Using symbolic interactionism and ethnographic methods involving participant observation and 12 in-depth interviews, the paper tried to revisit the traditional Igbo cultural naming patterns in selected 21st century Igbo communities in Awka South Local government Area. The findings of the study show that the conflict between the Igbo cultural naming patterns and western Christian religion was a result of lack of understanding and misinterpretation of the culture by the early bearers of the western religion. It therefore suggests that visitors to every Igbo society should try to understand the basic principles of each cultural practice before condemning it.