Hybridisation strategies in anglicisation: the case of Akan personal names

Several Akan personal names are losing their sociocultural meaning due to the process of anglicisation. Anglicisation affects the orthography, segments, pronunciation, and sometimes the original meanings of some personal names in Akan. We, however, know that personal names are not just arbitrary labels, but sociocultural tags that have sociocultural functions and meanings as well as linguistic and typological information cultures.  This study,  therefore,  seeks to discuss  hybridisation strategies  employed  in  anglicising  some  personal  names  in  Akan.  This  is  a  descriptive  qualitative  study.  The  data  for  this  study  were  collected  from  both  primary  and  secondary  sources.  Sixty  students  from  the  University  of Education, Winneba, with an age range of 30–50 years old were consulted. The study shows that hybridisation  processes  employed  in  anglicising  personal  names  in  Akan  include  hybridised  names  with “-son”, hybridised names with “-ful”, innovative hybridised names and semantic translation of the original  names,  among  others.  Except  for  semantic  translated  names,  all  the  revealed  hybridisation  strategies  ultimately  erode  the  sociocultural  meaning  of  the  affected  names.  This  article,  therefore,  contributes to the study of anthroponymy and the onomasiology of Akan.