Mohamed or Adam?

Abstract

A name is one of the essential elements of identity. The choice of a name reflects personal as well as ethnic or religious identity. It is a reflection of individual preferences, cultural traditions and family ties, the social environment. These processes are also evident in a minority environment. The subject of interest of this study are strategies for granting names in Muslim families living in Slovakia. Our aim is to find out how and why parents choose names for their children. We will try to identify the role of individual feelings of parents as they are influenced by customary traditions of the countries from which the child’s parents come. We will be interested in the extent to which the fact that the partners live in Slovakia (mostly a Christian country with a minimal proportion of the Muslim population) contributes to the decision on the name, how it is determined by the existing public opinion about foreigners and Muslims. We present findings of a questionnaire survey with Muslims living in Slovakia or their partners. The participants were mainly people living in ethnically or religiously mixed partnerships, partly homogeneous partnerships or people who lived without a partner.