This book is about personal names, something of abiding interest to specialists and lay readers alike. Over a million people have checked the American Name Society website since 1996, for instance. Many philosophers and linguists suggest that names are 'just' labels, but parents internationally are determined to get their children's names 'right'. Personal names may be given, lost, traded, stolen and inherited. This collection of essays provides comparative ethnography through which we examine the politics of naming; the extent to which names may be property-like; and the power of names...

Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen tells a story of a Yemeni hereditary elite which was overthrown in the 1962 revolution in North Yemen. For over a millennium, they had enjoyed exclusive rights to the leadership of the Imamate, the religiously sanctioned state. Following the violent removal from power of King Faysal of Iraq in 1958, the overthrow of the Yemeni Imamate - the longest lasting Hashimite rule in the Middle East - confirmed the decline of Hashimite power (held by ruling generations claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad). However, rather than concentrating on recent...

This book is about personal names, something of abiding interest to specialists and lay readers alike. Over a million people have checked the American Name Society website since 1996, for instance. Many philosophers and linguists suggest that names are 'just' labels, but parents internationally are determined to get their children's names 'right'. Personal names may be given, lost, traded, stolen and inherited. This collection of essays provides comparative ethnography through which we examine the politics of naming; the extent to which names may be property-like; and the power of names...