English, I suspect, leads us down some linguistic garden paths when used to discuss name categories. In Iñupiaq, for instance, one can only ask kiña atiñ? Who is your name? Although one may ask, “suna una?” (what is that?) in reference to things, “suna atiñ?” (what is your name?) is a non-question. The response, “uvaanga Qimmieluk,” translates literally as “I, Qimmieluk.”

The question “Who is your name?” and the answer, “I, Qimmieluk,” offer us a framework – on which I shall build over the next pages – that allows us to examine several notions. The first is that the power of recognition and the power of speech are crucial aspects of naming. On the North Slope, both recognition and speaking personal names are instituted positively; in other contexts the potential dangerous power of both may be marked through avoidance. Lest we be tempted to interpret this purely in discursive terms, this chapter explores the extent to which the power of both speech and recognition are linked in important respects to the who of the name itself. The who of the name, I then suggest, not only implies identity but also sociality that may potentially exist well beyond the immediate universe of the name holder.