Naming System of Baduy Tribe
Cece Sobarna
1
, Asri Soraya Afsari
2
, and Santy Yulianti
3
{cece@unpad.ac.id}
Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Padjajaran
12
, Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa
3
Abstract. Name characterizes a person, place, object, without having trouble in describing
it. We can imagine how difficult for us to call someone or say something considering how
many people and kinds of things in this world. Therefore, there are efforts in naming
system through conventions of each society. The Baduy community in the Banten region,
Indonesia has a unique naming system. The name of a child is related to his/her parent.
This study aims to describe the naming system in the Baduy community that has been
going on so far and to examine the dynamics of its changes. Data collection methods
include in-depth interviews (open-ended interviews) and observations, both participatory
and periodic observations in the field, and the written document study method. The results
show that the names for women are taken from the component of the father's name,
whereas the names for boys are taken from the component of the mother's name. Indeed,
not all Baduy names follow this pattern. There are also names that do not take component
from the name of the father/mother due to their beliefs. For example, many Baduy women
named Runtah which means 'trash/waste'. They believe that Runtah name is an
enchantment in order for the child would not get sick easily. There also parents’ names
belong to their children with additional surename like Ambu for mother and Ayah for
Father.
Keywords: naming system, proper name, Baduy society
1 Introduction
Giving a name to someone or something is a universal symptom that exists in every society.
We can imagine how difficult it is for us to call someone or say something considering how
many people and kinds of things in this world. However, humans give meaning to every name.
Name giving something related to the thinking pattern of a society and is a universal symptom
(Sobarna, 1993)[1]. Name is a word or phrase that identifies a specific person, animal, place or
thing. The name is also a label for someone or something. Most people know only one naming
system.
However, Lawson said that in reality this naming system differs in each nation [2, p. 169].
Ainiala et.al [3] describe a name with two fundamental meanings. Name is a combination of
words such as Earo (Balitc Sea) referring to certain people, humans, objects, which can be
replaced by the terms proper name or proper noun. In addition, a name can also be a reference
to someone, or something called an appellative. Onomastics, which is a special linguistic
science, discusses proper noun. The history of names will always vary in each language and
culture.
BASA 2020, November 04, Solok, Indonesia
Copyright © 2021 EAI
DOI 10.4108/eai.4-11-2020.2314192