CHOOSING NAMES 



its christening on the third or fourth day of its life. 

 In fact, I have seen a mother bring her baby on the 

 very day of its birth, explaining her hurry by saying 

 that codfish were plentiful, and her husband really 

 could not stay in the village any longer, but must 

 leave at once for the fishing camp. There is not 

 as a rule, much trouble about choosing a name : 

 some relative or other is sure to be anxious to have 

 an Attitsiak (namesake), and he or she is honoured 

 if it be possible. A few years ago one of our 

 numerous Abias was on the point of becoming a 

 grandfather, and he obtained a promise from his 

 son and daughter-in-law that the child should be 

 named after him. Unfortunately, as it happened, 

 the baby was a girl; and, to his great disappoint- 

 ment, the fond grandfather found that his own name 

 was unsuitable. But the young parents put their 

 heads together, and planned a splendid way of 

 overcoming the difficulty : the old man should have 

 his namesake; so they called the child Sopia, the 

 Eskimo version of Sophia and the nearest to Abia 

 that a girl's name could be, and Sopia she is. 



It struck me as an odd custom that a woman who 

 marries a widower should give her first child the name 

 of her husband's late wife, but so the custom often is. 



If there are no relatives or friends who parti- 

 cularly want a namesake, there are plenty of Bible 

 characters whose names can be used ; and nowadays 

 some of the great names from history or from public 

 life are to be heard in daily use among the Eskimos. 



The pronunciation is sometimes quaint, and the 

 names may be almost unrecognisable Pita for 

 Bertha, and Edua for Edward, for example but that 

 is only the way they have struck the Eskimo ear. 



89 



