Naming Culture

Are you considering relocating to Eritrea for the long term? If you are, you will undoubtedly be interested in learning more about Eritrean naming culture. The Eritreans do not believe in family names and instead give their children separate first names when they are born. It is a person's first name that they will use for the rest of their lives. This is absolutely one of the things to know before traveling to Eritrea.

For naming culture, if you want to stay among these folks for a long time, you'll have to blend in and, more than likely, alter your name. A father's name is used as the second name and may be followed by a grandfather's name in official paperwork to distinguish several persons with the same first name.

If you marry an Eritrean man, you will not need to alter your second or third names; instead, you will use the patronymic (father's name) that your husband's family has used from birth. Eritrea and Ethiopia employ a naming system that does not include family names and instead consists of a single personal name plus a patronymic. This is comparable to the name rules used in Arabic, Icelandic, and Somali languages.