The Politics of Naming and the Immigrant Identity

Studying Onomastics in Nabokov’s Pnin

Abstract

Names, primarily used to identify individuals, also act as socio-cultural markers mirroring one’s sense of belonging or lack thereof within a community. In an immigrant context, the host country’s linguistic and cultural trends decide if a person will experience inclusion or exclusion. This paper, exploring Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pnin through the theoretical lens of onomastics, proposes that names have symbolic meanings. The name of a person, especially the one placed in an unfamiliar environment suggests curiosity, mispronunciation, or even rejection.  The study seeks help from the frameworks presented in Names and Naming: Multicultural Aspects by Felecan and Bugheșiu to establish that the metaphors of the melting pot and salad bowl used in the book reflect how immigrant identities are perceived through names. The paper also compares Pnin’s names with other characters, such as Victor, Liza, and Eric Wind, whose names symbolize adaptation and assimilation to dominant cultural codes. Through qualitative textual analysis and a close reading of the text, this paper argues that naming functions as a linguistic and narrative device.