The Production of Legal Identities Proper to States: The Case of the Permanent Family Surname

Abstract

State naming practices and local, customary naming practices are strikingly different. Each set of practices is designed to make the human and physical landscape legible, by sharply identifying a unique individual, a household, or a singular geographic feature. Yet they are each devised by very distinct agents for whom the purposes of identification are radically different. Purely local, customary practices, as we shall see, achieve a level of precision and clarity--often with impressive economy--perfectly suited to the needs of knowledgeable locals. State naming practices are, by contrast, constructed to guide an official ÔstrangerÕ in identifying unambiguously persons and places, not just in a single locality, but in many localities using standardized administrative techniques.