Sherpa personal names

The personal names of the Sherpa traditionally consist of only one or more first names . At birth, they are often named after the day of the week on which they were born, and the belittling particle "Ang" and religious names can also be given. Other names can be added in the course of life.

Family names are not in use among the Sherpa. When the need arises through contact with other cultures, many Sherpas use the term “Sherpa” like a surname.

Preliminary remark

The Sherpa language , also called Sherpa , is a language without writing. A widely accepted convention for textualization does not exist. Therefore, there is no regulated possibility of transcription into the Latin alphabet . The spelling is usually created by simulating the spoken sounds and can therefore deviate from other spellings.

In the following, the Sherpa names are given in a common spelling. However, other spellings may also be used. For example, the spelling “Mingmar”, “Migmar” and “Mikmar” are also used for the name Mingma .

Names given at birth

At birth, Sherpas are given a name made up of one or two words. Components of this name can be the day of the week of the birth and religious virtue or protective names; the names can also be combined with the particle Ang .

Weekday names

Traditionally, Sherpas are named after the day of the week they were born. The name of the weekday is also the name of a deity associated with a heavenly body. The name bearer should be under the protection of this deity, the protection is renewed each time the name is used. None of these names has a gender-specific form, which means that it is not possible to read the gender of the name bearer from the name.

The week is like in most cultures in the Sherpa of seven days. The assignment of celestial bodies to deities corresponds to that in western cultures, which was adopted from the Babylonian naming, cf. Designation of the days of the week . The following table gives an overview of the days of the week, the associated Sherpa names and the heavenly bodies associated with the days of the week.

weekday	Surname	Star
Sunday	Nyima	Sun
Monday	Dawa	moon
Tuesday	Mingma	Mars
Wednesday	Lhakpa	Mercury
Thursday	Phurba	Jupiter
Friday	Pasang	Venus
Saturday	Pemba	Saturn

Religious names

In addition to the weekday names, religious names are common. These can be virtue names - for example Dorje ('wisdom', 'clarity'), Gyerme ('constancy') or Phuti ('generosity') - or names from Tibetan Buddhism . If it is the name of a saint or a deity - for example Dolma , Lhamo - the name bearers will also be protected by the name.

Most of these names are assigned a gender. For example, the name Appa is only given to men, the name Dolma only to women. Other names are used for both sexes, such as Kami or Kipa . There are also a few names with a male and female form. For example, for the male name Jangbu (alternative spellings: "Dzangbu", "Zangbu") there is the feminine Jangmu (alternative spellings: "Dzangmo", "Zangmo").

Combinations

Weekday names and religious names can either stand alone or be combined with one another. In the second case, the two-syllable day of the week always comes first and can be shortened to the first syllable. Examples are Phu-dorje (instead of Phurba Dorje ), Da-phuti (instead of Dawa Phuti ) or Nyim-phuti (instead of Nyima Phuti ).

Many Sherpa names are preceded by the particle "Ang". It has a diminutive function and means 'little one' or 'beloved one'. Accordingly, it is not used as the sole name. If a two-part name with “Ang” is shortened to a nickname, this is usually the other part of the name.

Name change and addition

Tenzing Norgay (right), who first climbed Mount Everest together with Edmund Hillary (left), was originally named Namgyal Wangdi

Sherpas can take on another name at any point in their life - for example, regardless of marriage . This is done in a spiritual ceremony by a lama . It is common for Sherpa parents to ask a lama to bless their child with a name within a year of birth. Often the lamas then give one of their own names. The name given to the child at birth can still be used, so that a child can have several names and can even be addressed differently by different family members.

Name changes at a later point in time are especially common when a Sherpa has suffered from problems such as serious illness, persistent bad luck or a series of accidents for a long time. Then one hopes for a better future by giving them a new name. A famous example of such a case is one of the most famous Sherpas of all: Tenzing Norgay , one of the two first climbers of Mount Everest . He was named Namgyal Wangdi at birth. After he became chronically ill as a child, his parents asked the lama to give him a new name. He recognized in him the reincarnation of a recently deceased, wealthy man. He gave him the names Tenzing (German roughly: 'supporters of religion') and Norgay ('rich').

Surname

The Sherpa traditionally do not have a surname . The identification of belonging to a family by a common family name is unknown to their culture. The name identifies the individual, not the person as part of the family. This means that there is no generational inheritance of names or the adoption of a common name after the wedding. Society is divided into about twenty clans , see clans of the Sherpa ; but also the clan name is traditionally not used as a component of personal names.

Due to the contact with other cultures and with the administration of their own state, it has become necessary for many Sherpas to give a surname. The need arises, for example, for passports and other travel documents, when a census is carried out or for school registration forms. The Sherpa often use "Sherpa" as their surname, less often the name of their clan.

One of the reasons for choosing "Sherpa" as a surname is given as the census that has been carried out in Nepal since 1911 and which, with the 1961 survey, first reached internationally recognized scientific standards. At the time, the vast majority of Sherpas were unable to read or write. The government officials who conducted the interview reportedly put “Sherpa” on the surname of anyone who looked and was dressed like a Sherpa and could not provide their surname. It is also believed that the majority of Sherpas gave “Sherpa” as their surname in 1960s censuses to persuade authorities that they were not recently - especially after Tibet became part of the People's Republic of China in the late 1950s - immigrated from Tibet .

Another reason is seen in the fact that the term “Sherpa” became a synonym for high mountain bearers , see Broadcasted Meanings of “Sherpa” . Anyone who wanted to work in this industry could hope for considerable advantages from having “Sherpa” as part of their name.

Therefore, almost all Sherpa use the surname "Sherpa" today. Since some have the makeshift name before their other parts of the name, the designation "surname" is sometimes imprecise. The only exception are members of the Lama clan , who are considered proud of the clan. Many of them therefore use the clan name "Lama" as their surname. For the reasons mentioned, even some non-Sherpas who live in the Sherpa settlement area or who emigrate from there use “Sherpa” as their surname and indicate their ethnic group as “Sherpa”. Analyzes of census data have shown that the number of name bearers is increasing faster than population growth and migration movements allow.

Distinctness

Since only a limited number of combinations can be made from the scheme “Ang” - weekday - religious name and the surname is hardly suitable for further differentiation, many Sherpas have completely identical names. In these cases, you yourself distinguish between relatives, clan affiliations or origins. Outsiders often use a place name to differentiate between names, such as the place of residence or place of birth.

See also

• List of Tibetan names and titles

literature

• James F. Fisher: Sherpas: reflections on change in Himalayan Nepal . University of California Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-520-06941-1 , Chapter Note on Orthography and Sherpa Names , pp. XV f .
• Lhakpa Doma Sherpa, Chhiri Tendi Sherpa (Salaka), Karl-Heinz Krämer (Tsak): Sherpa Conversation & Basic Words . Ratna Books, Kathmandu 2006, ISBN 99933-58-02-9 ( online in PDF format, approx. 1.2 MB [accessed June 17, 2011]).

Web links

• Sherpa Names - general introduction with some examples. (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fisher: Sherpas . 1990, p. XV .
2. ↑ Sherpa Conversation & Basic Words . 2006, p. 4 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Barbara Pijan Lama: Sherpa Names. (No longer available online.) United Sherpa Association, archived from the original on August 19, 2011 ; accessed on June 17, 2011 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Fisher: Sherpas . 1990, p. XVI .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Ann Heinrichs: Mount Everest . In: Nature's Wonders . Marshall Cavendish, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7614-3933-2 , pp. 61 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Sherpa Conversation & Basic Words . 2006, chapter Sherpa names , p. 172 ff . (Name register).
7. ↑ Joe Bindloss, Trent Holden, Bradley Mayhew: Lonely Planet Nepal . Lonely Planet , 2009, ISBN 978-1-74104-832-2 , pp. 49 .
8. ↑ Sherpa Conversation & Basic Words . 2006.
9. ↑ Bradley Mayhew, Joe Bindloss: Lonely Planet Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya . 9th edition. Lonely Planet , 2009, ISBN 978-1-74104-188-0 , pp. 66 .
10. ↑ Ed Douglas: Hero of Everest: A Biography of Tenzing Norgay . National Geographic Society, 2003, ISBN 0-7922-6983-7 , pp. 40 .
11. ↑ Ed Douglas: Hero of Everest: A Biography of Tenzing Norgay . National Geographic Society, 2003, ISBN 0-7922-6983-7 , pp. 39 f .
12. ↑ ^{a b c d} Questions and answers about Sherpa customs. Why is "Sherpa" added to the end of every Sherpa person's name? (No longer available online.) United Sherpa Association, archived from the original on January 28, 2011 ; accessed on June 18, 2011 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ^ Government of Nepal. Ministry of Health & Population (Ed.): Nepal Population Report 2007 . ( Document online ( Memento of November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) in .doc format on the Ministry's website [accessed on June 17, 2011]). Nepal Population Report 2007 ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ Urs Müller, Ghana S. Gurung, Michael Kollmair, Ulrike Müller-Böker: “Because the Project Is Helping Us to Improve Our Lives, We Also Help Them with Conservation” - Integrated Conservation and Development in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal . In: Marc Galvin, Tobias Haller (Eds.): Perspectives of the NCCR North-South . tape 3 . People, Protected Areas and Global Change: Participatory conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. University of Bern, Bern 2008, p. 369 ( online as PDF , approx. 543 KB [accessed June 19, 2011]). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ ^{a b} Vincanne Adams: Tigers of the snow and other virtual Sherpas: an ethnography of Himalayan encounters . Princeton University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-691-00111-1 , pp. 240 .
16. ↑ Stephen Bezruchka: Trekking in Nepal: a traveler's guide . No. 7 . The Mountaineers Books, 1997, ISBN 0-89886-535-2 .
17. ^ Dilli Ram Dahal: Population Monograph of Nepal . Ed .: Government of Nepal. National Planning Commission Secretariat. Central Bureau of Statistics. Volume I, Chapter 3. Social Composition of the Population: Caste / Ethnicity and Religion in Nepal, p. 110 ( Chapter online, PDF, approx. 150 kB ). Chapter online, PDF, approx. 150 kB ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.