Scott Legal Identities

Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History
The Production of Legal Identities Proper to States: The Case of the Permanent Family
Surname
Author(s): James C. Scott, John Tehranian and Jeremy Mathias
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 4-44
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The Productionof Legal Identities
Properto States:The Case
of the PermanentFamily Surname
JAMES C. SCOTT, JOHN TEHRANIAN,
AND JEREMY MATHIAS
YaleUniversity
We namea thingand-bang!-it leapsintoexistence.Eachnamea perfectequation

withits roots.A perfectcongruencewithits reality.(YollandandOwen)
Butremember thatwordsaresignals,counters.Theyarenotimmortal.Andit canhap-
pen-to use an imageyou'llunderstand-itcanhappenthata civilisationcanbe im-
prisonedin a linguisticcontourwhichno longermatchesthelandscapeof... fact.
(Hugh)
I'll decodeyouyet. (Yolland')
I. INTRODUCTION
Statenamingpracticesandlocal, customarynamingpracticesarestrikinglydif-
ferent. Each set of practicesis designed to make the humanand physical land-
scape legible, by sharplyidentifyinga uniqueindividual,a household,or a sin-
gular geographicfeature.Yet they are each devised by very distinct agents for
whom the purposes of identificationare radicallydifferent.Purely local, cus-
tomarypractices,as we shall see, achieve a level of precision and clarity-of-
ten with impressiveeconomy-perfectly suitedto the needs of knowledgeable
locals. State namingpracticesare, by contrast,constructedto guide an official
'stranger'in identifyingunambiguouslypersonsandplaces, notjust in a single
locality, but in many localities using standardizedadministrativetechniques.
Thereis no State-makingwithoutState-naming
To follow the progressof state-makingis, amongotherthings, to tracethe elab-
orationandapplicationof novel systems which nameandclassify places, roads,
people, and, above all, property.These state projectsof legibility overlay, and
often supersede,local practices.Wherelocal practicespersist,they aretypical-
ly relevantto a narrowerand narrowerrange of interactionwithin the confines
of a face-to-face community.
A contrastbetween local names for roadsand statenames for roadswill help
illustratethe two variantsof legibility.Thereis, for example, a small roadjoin-
0010-4175/02/4-44 $9.50 ? 2002 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History

PRODUCTION OF LEGAL IDENTITIES PROPER TO STATES 5
ing the towns of DurhamandGuilfordin the stateof Connecticut(USA). Those

who live in Durhamcall this road (among themselves) the "GuilfordRoad,"
presumablybecause it informsthe inhabitantsof Durhamexactly where they'll
get to if they travel it. The same road, at its Guilford terminus,is called, the
"DurhamRoad"because it tells the inhabitantsof Guilfordwhere the roadwill
lead them. One imagines that at some liminal midpoint, the road hovers be-
tween these two identities. Such names work perfectly well; they each encode
valuablelocal knowledge, i.e., perhapsthe most importantfact one might want
to know about a road. That the same road has two names, dependingon one's
location, demonstratesthe situational,contingentnatureof local namingprac-
tices. Informal,'folk' namingpracticesnot only producethe anomalyof a road
with two or more names;they also producemany differentroadswith the same
name. Thus, the nearbytowns of Killingworth,Haddam,Madison, and Meri-
den each have roads leading to Durhamwhich the inhabitantslocally call the
"DurhamRoad."
Now imagine the insuperableproblems that this locally-effective folk sys-
tem would pose to an outsiderrequiringunambiguousidentificationsfor each
road.A stateroadrepaircrew, sent to fix potholes on the "DurhamRoad"would
have to ask, "WhichDurhamRoad?"Thus it is no surprisethat the road be-
tween Durhamand Guilfordis re-incarnatedon all statemaps and designations
as "Route 77." Each micro-segmentof that route, moreover,is identified by
means of telephonepole serial numbers,milestones, and townshipboundaries.
The naming practices of the state require a synoptic view, a standardized
scheme of identificationgeneratingmutuallyexclusive and exhaustive desig-
nations.2And, this system can work to the benefit of stateresidents:if you have
to be rescued on Route 77 by a state-dispatchedambulanceteam, you will be
reassuredto know thatthereis no ambiguityaboutwhich roadit is thatyou are
bleeding on.
All place names, personalnames, and names of roads or rivers encode im-
portantknowledge. Some of thatknowledge is a thumbnailhistory:e.g., Maid-
en Lane [the lane where five spinstersisters once lived], Cider Hill Road [the
roadup the hill where the CiderMill and orchardonce stood], CreamPot Road
[once the site of a dairywhere neighborswent to buy milk, cream, andbutter].
At one time, when the name became fixed, it was probablythe most relevant
and useful name for local inhabitants.Othernames refer to geographicalfea-
tures:Mica Ridge Road, Bare Rock Road, Ball Brook Road. The sum of roads
and place names in a small place, in fact, amountsto somethingof a local ge-
ographyandhistoryif one knows the stories,features,episodes, and family en-
terprisesencoded within them.3
For officials who require a radically different form of order, such local
knowledge, however quaint, is illegible. It privileges local knowledge over
synoptic, standardizedknowledge. In the case of colonial rule, when the con-
querors speak an entirely different language, the unintelligibility of the ver-

6 JAMES C. SCOTT, JOHN TEHRANIAN, AND JEREMY MATHIAS
nacular landscape is a nearly insurmountableobstacle to effective rule. Re-

namingmuchof the landscapethereforeis an essentialstep of imperialrule.This
explainswhy the BritishOrdinanceSurveyof Irelandin the 1830s recordedand
renderedmany local Gaelic place names (e.g., Bun na hAbhann, Gaelic for
"mouthof the river")in a form (Burnfoot)more easily understoodby the rulers.
The conflict between vernacular,local meaningin place names and a higher-
ordergrid of synoptic legibility is, however,rathergeneric. It is heightenedby
culturaldifference,but it rests ultimatelyon the divergentpurposesfor which
a semanticorderis created.In westernWashingtonstate, for example, county
officials in the 1970s changed old street and road names (e.g., French Creek
GrangeRoad,RainwaterRoad, Picnic Road,PotatoRoad) to new namesbased
on the comprehensivelogic of serialnumbersandcompassdirections(19thAv-
enue Northwest, 167thAvenue Southeast).The result was a standardizedgrid
on which each house could be located with Cartesiansimplicity.4As the title:
"Townsin WashingtonBringing Back the Poetry in StreetNames," indicates,
a small popularrevolt had succeeded in recuperatingthe old streetnames to the
consternationof planningofficials whose planninggeometryhad enabled am-
bulances or firefightersto be dispatchedwith greaterspeed and reliability.For
a planner,a transportationmanager,a tax collector,or a police officer, the con-
veniences of such a grid over vernacularpracticesis obvious. "Withall these
strangenames, for an engineer like me, I go, 'Aw, this is awful.' With Killar-
ney Place or Baloney Whatever,cul de sacs [sic] and circularstreets, finding
our way aroundis really difficult."5
II. STATE-NAMING AS STATE-MAKING:

THE CASE OF INDIVIDUAL NAMING PRACTICES
Like place-names,permanentsurnameshelp to chartthe humantopographyof

any region. Names play a vital role in determiningidentities, culturalaffilia-
tions, and histories;they can help fractureor unify groupsof people. They rep-
resent an integralpartof knowledge-powersystems. This paperwill study sur-
namesas a social construct-a system of knowledge spunin the webs of power.
Although most Westernerstake their existence for granted,fixed, hereditary
surnamesare moderninventions.Througha comparativeanalysis, we will ar-
gue that the use of inheritedfamilial surnamesrepresentsa relatively recent
phenomenonintricatelylinked to the aggrandizementof state control over in-
dividuals and the developmentof modernlegal systems and propertyregimes.
In particular,the creationand diffusion of inheritablesurnamesrepresenteda
critical tool in the power struggle between local and outside authoritiesin the
development of the modern nation-state,the emergence of ethnonationalist
identities, and the imposition of credible privatepropertysystems.
The Problem of Confusion

Whereis ourhistory?/Whatarethenameswasheddownthesewer/Inthecepticflood?/
I prayto the rain/Giveme backmy rituals/Givebacktruth/Return
the remnantsof

my identity/Bathe me in self-discovered knowledge/Identifymy ancestorswho have

existedsuppressed/Invoke theirspiritswithpower .... (Shakespeare, Othello,Act 3,
Scene2)
It is both strikingandimportantto recognizehow relativelylittle the pre-modern
state actuallyknew aboutthe society over which it presided.State officials had
only the most tenuousidea of the populationundertheirjurisdiction,its move-
ments, its real property,wealth, crop yields, etc. Theirdegree of ignorancewas
directly proportionalto the fragmentationof their sources of information.Lo-
cal currenciesand local measuresof capacity (e.g., the bushel) and length (the
ell, the rod, the toise) were likely to vary from place to place and with the na-
ture of the transactingparties.6The opacity of local society was, of course, ac-
tively maintainedby local elites as one effective means of resistanceto intru-
sions from above.
Having little synoptic, aggregateintelligence about the manpowerand re-
sources availableto it, officials were apt eitherto overreachin their exactions,
touchingoff flight or revolt,or to fail to mobilizethe resourcesthatwere, in fact,
available.To follow the process of state-making,then, is to follow the conquest
of illegibility.The accountof this conquest-an achievementwon againststiff
resistance-could take many forms, for example:the creationof the cadastral
surveyanduniformpropertyregisters,the inventionandimpositionof the meter,
nationalcensuses and currencies,and the developmentof uniformlegal codes.
Here we examine what we take to be one crucial and diagnostic victory in
this campaignfor legibility: the creationof fixed, legal patronyms.If vernacu-
larlandscape-namingpracticesareopaqueandillegible to outsideofficials, ver-
nacularpersonal naming practices are even more so. The fixing of personal
names, and, in particular,permanentpatronyms, as legal identities seems,
everywhere,to have been, broadly-speaking,a stateproject.As an earlyandim-
perfect legal identification,the permanentpatronymwas linked to such vital
administrativefunctions as tithe and tax collection, propertyregisters, con-
scriptionlists, and census rolls. To understandwhy fixed, legal patronymsrep-
resent such a quantumleap in the legibility of a populationto state officials, it
is first necessaryto understandthe utterfluidity of vernacularnamingpractices
uninflectedby state routines.
Vernacularnamingpracticesthroughoutmuch of the world are enormously
rich and varied.7In many cultures,an individual'sname will change from con-
text to context and, within the same context, over time. It is not uncommonfor
a newbornto have had one or morenamechangesin uteroin the event the moth-
er's labor seemed to be going badly.Names often vary at each stage of life (in-
fancy, childhood, adulthood,parenthood,old age) and, in some cases, after
death.Added to these may be names used for joking, rituals,mourning,nick-
names, school names, secret names, names for age-matesor same-sex friends,
and names for in-laws. Eachname is specific to a phase of life, a social setting,
or a particularinterlocutor.To the question, "Whatis your name?"the reply in
such cases can only be: "Itdepends."

In the small vernacularcommunity,of course, this cornucopiaof names oc-

casions no confusion whatsoever.Local residentsknow the names they need to
know, the codes appropriateto their use, the room for maneuverwithin these
codes, andthe ways in which these codes mightbe transgressed.They arerarely
in doubt aboutwho is who.
How is local confusion avoided in the absence of permanentpatronyms?Let
us take the simplest case where thereare a small numberof fixed, given names
(often called "first"or "Christian"names in westernEurope).It is claimed, for
example, that aroundthe year 1700 in England,a mere eight given names ac-
counted for nearly ninety percentof the total male population[John, Edward,
William, Henry,Charles,James, Richard,Robert].Withoutpermanentpatro-
nyms, local people had innumerableways of unambiguouslyidentifying any
individual.A by-name, second-name,or (sur)name[not to be confused with a
permanentpatronym]was usually sufficient to make the defining distinction.
One 'John,'for example, mightbe distinguishedfromanotherby specifying his
father's name ("William'sJohn"or "John-William's-son"/Williamson)8-by
linking him to an occupation("John-the-miller," "John-theshepherd")-by lo-
cating him in the landscape("John-on-the-hill,""John-by-the-brook"--orby
noting a personal characteristic(John-do-little). The written records of the
manoror the parishmight actuallybearnotationsof suchby-namesfor the sake
of clarity.
Local practicein a contemporaryMalay-Muslimvillage, where thereare no
permanentpatronymsand where the numberof given names is similarlylimit-
ed, follows much the same pattern.Kasim who owns a small store is distin-
guished from four other Kasim's in the village by being called "Kasim-kedai"
('store' Kasim); Ahmad who can read the Koran is called "Lebai-[Ah]mat";
Mansorwho was once trippedup when his sarongfell down while chasing chil-
drenis called, only behind-his-backof course, "Mansur-terlondeh" (Mansorof
the accidentallyfalling sarong), and Zakariahwho has a harelipis called, also
behindhis back, "[Zakar]iah-rabit" (Hare-lipZakariah).In this Malay-Muslim
village, each of these names is locally, but only locally, definitive;only a rela-
tive insider is likely to know who has the village reputationfor laziness, who
can recitethe Koran,who trippedon his sarong,or which Johnis William'sson.
The vernacularsystem is perfectly discriminatingfor those with the requisite
local knowledge to understandeach reference.Withouta 'local-tracker'to fill
in the missing informationfor identification,the outsideris at a loss.
The vernacularcommunitiesof the past, in partbecauseof theirautonomous
naming practices, were quasi-opaqueto state officials. Access to individuals
was typically achieved indirectlythroughintermediaries:the local nobleman,
the village headman,the imam or the parishpriest, the tavernkeeper, the no-
tary.Such intermediaries,naturally,had theirown individualand corporatein-
terests.They mightprofithandsomelyfromtheirgate-keepingrole. In any case,
their interestswere never perfectly coincident with those of state officials and

often at cross-purposes.It is for such reasonsthatlocally-keptcensus rolls have

often under-reportedthe population(to evade taxes, corv6e labor,or conscrip-
tion) and understatedboth arableland acreage and crop yields. WilfredThe-
siger, in his classic account of the MarshArabs in southernIraq,provides an
instructiveexample of how official ignoranceof local identities might be de-
ployed for local purposes.The provincialpolice, actingas conscriptionofficers
come to a marshvillage with a list of thirty-twopresumablyeligible young men,
two of whom they plan to take with them as recruits.Unable to identify anyone
properly,the officials are told that the boys they seek are all either too young,
have moved away, or have died. Insteadthey are given two young men whom
village leadershad, all along, selected for them.9
Remediesto Illegibility: The Tamingof Chance
The problem of naming and identificationcan be expressed generally.Let us
imagine a police official (it could be a tax collector or a conscriptionofficer)
who is trying to locate a specific, unique individual.Assume furtherthat he is
faced with a situationnot unlikethatof a smallEnglishvillage in 1700, but with
no surnames,let alone fixed, patronymicsurnames.Takea comparativelysim-
ple case of a village with, say, 1,000 males bearing only one of eight names
which are, for the sake of this initial case, perfectly evenly distributedacross
the (male) population.How likely, in this case, is our police official to collar
the man he is after?If he knows he is looking for a "Henry,"there will be 125
"Henrys"in this village and 124 of them will be the wrong "Henry."Without
local assistanceand underthe assumption,for the sake of argument,thathe ac-
tually knows the 'true'given names of all villagers, he will almost surely fail.
What if we imagine that all males in this village have two names, which vary
independently?In this case, the chances that the police official will grab the
wrong "Henry"are much reduced,but still substantial,as there will be about
15 "HenryThomass,"15 "WilliamJamess,"etc. Once we move to threenames
(also varyingindependently),it is likely thatthe police official will get his man
half the time on average.The opacity of the villagers to outside identification
is reducedradicallyby the use of each additionalidentifyingname.
Our hypotheticalexample is, in effect, a best case scenario with only eight
given names.Assume, for a moment,thatthe names arenot evenly distributed;
assume thatthe name, say, "William"is so popularthathalf the men in the vil-
lage bear it, and the other seven names are evenly distributedamong the re-
mainder.In that case, the police agent, looking for a particularWilliam, will
face 285 aliases if the villagers have only a single name, 81 aliases in a village
with two names, and 39 aliases in a village with threenames.10The point is that
anythingless thanan even distributionof namesappreciablyraisesthe odds that
the 'suspect'with a more common name will elude identification.
If we impose, arbitrarily,on such a village a permanentlegal patronymsuch
thatThomasson of Williamis registeredas ThomasWilliamsonandhis son as,

IO JAMES C. SCOTT, JOHN TEHRANIAN, AND JEREMY MATHIAS
say, HenryWilliamson,and his son as, say, EdwardWilliamson,and so on, we

do not improvethe odds for the police who want to identify an individualin his
generationbut we do vastly improvethe odds of identifyinghis parents,grand-
parents, sons and daughterswho must necessarily bear the same permanent
patronym.Questions of inheritance,paternity,and household affiliation be-
come far more transparent,but never entirely so.
Before the advent of internal passports, photographs,and social security
numbers,personalnames were the form of identificationmost germaneto po-
lice work. The use of personalnames to locate a person depended,of course,
on the complianceof the individualandthe communityin revealingtruenames.
Where the community was hostile and the individual evasive, state officials
were stymied. Hence the official predilectionfor internalpassportsthat must
be carried at all times under penalty of fines, or, better yet, for fingerprints
which are unique and hardto efface or, betteryet, for DNA profiles, a unique
markerpresentin any sample of tissue.
Let us assume, for the moment,both a high level of complianceand a world
in which the personalname is the key 'identifier.'The police-here used as a
convenient shorthandfor any authoritieswanting to locate a specific individ-
ual-may have their task complicatedin either of two ways. The smaller the
numberof names in use within a population,the more difficult becomes the
process of identification.We mightthinkof this as the 'needle'partof the 'look-
ing for a needle in a haystack'problem.How many needles look just like the
particularneedle we are looking for? The size of the haystackis also crucial.
Broadly speaking,the 'haystack'problemis a problemof scale. Once police-
work becomes a matter of finding a unique individual in a large town, a
province, let alone a nation, the confusion of identical names becomes an ad-
ministrativenightmare.The nightmareis furthercompoundedby geographical
mobility,as we shall see. If people are moving with any frequency,it becomes
well-nigh impossible to know in which of many haystacksto searchthem out.
The modernstate-by which we mean a state whose ideology encompasses
large-scaleplans for the improvementof the population'swelfare--requires at
least two forms of legibility to be able to achieve its mission. First,it requires
the capacity to locate citizens uniquely and unambiguously.Second, it needs
standardizedinformationthat will allow it to create aggregate statistics about
property,income, health,demography,productivity,etc. Althoughmuch of the
synoptic, aggregateinformationofficials of the modernstaterequireis collect-
ed initially from individuals, it must be collected in a form that makes it
amenableto an overall statisticalprofile-a shorthandmap of some social or
economic conditionrelevantfor state purposes.
Officials of the modernstate-and of largeorganizationsgenerally-are, of
necessity,at least one step removedfromthe society they arechargedwith gov-
erning. They "see" the human activity of interestto them largely throughthe
simplified approximationsof documents and statistics:tax proceeds, lists of

PRODUCTION OF LEGAL IDENTITIES PROPER TO STATES II
tax-payers,land records,averageincome, income distributions,mortalityrates

and tables, price and productivityfigures. Once in place the tools of legibility
and synoptic vision are readily deployed as the basis for gauging the progress
of an 'improving'state.1 Thusdo trendsin statisticson accidents,fertility,mor-
tality, employment,literacy levels, and consumer-durableownership serve as
indices of the success of statepolicy. Programsof improvement,even morethan
mere identification,requirea discriminatingset of techniques to locate indi-
viduals and classify them accordingto the relevantcriteria.The more intrusive
and discriminatingthe level of interventioncontemplated,the sharperthe tools
of legibility required.The demographicknowledge necessary,for example, to
conduct a vaccinationcampaignduringan epidemic, or to identify and locate
all residentsof a city who have engineeringdegrees or who have childrenwith
speech defects are cases in point.
The importanceof statisticsand measurementto legibility alertus to the fact
that the permanentpatronymis, as we have emphasized, only one of a larger
series of statepracticescollectively designedto take a relativelyillegible world
of vernacularmeaning and recast it in terms that are synopticallyvisible. The
case of uniform,standardizedmeasures,andthe cadastralsurveymight as read-
ily illustratehow the legibilityof namesnests, logically,with otherstate-making
initiatives.
PermanentPatronymsand the State: Origins

Before the fourteenthcentury,if we confine our attentionto Europe,permanent
patronymswere very much the exception.12Surnamesdesignating,say, occu-
pation or some personalcharacteristic,were widespread,but they did not sur-
vive the bearer.The rise of the permanentpatronymis inextricablyassociated
with those aspects of state-makingin which it was desirableto be able to dis-
tinguish individual(male) subjects:tax collection (includingtithes), conscrip-
tion, land revenue, courtjudgements,witness records,and police work.13
All of these activities requiremore or less elaboratelists. So it is hardlysur-
prisingthatit is throughsuch documentsthatthe effortto renderthe population
and its genealogy legible is best traced.The census [or catasto] of the Floren-
tine state in 1427 was an audacious(and failed) attemptto rationalizethe ad-
ministrationof revenue and manpower resources by recording the names,
wealth, residences, land-holdings,and ages of the city-state's inhabitants.At
the time, virtuallythe only Tuscanfamily nameswere those of a handfulof great
families [e.g., Strozzi]whose kin, includingaffines, adoptedthe name as a way
of claiming the backing of a powerful corporategroup.The vast majoritywere
identified reasonably unambiguouslyby the registrars,but not by personal
patronyms.They might list their father and grandfather(e.g., Luigi, son of
Paulo, son of Giovanni)14or they might add a nickname,a profession,or a per-
sonal characteristic.It is reasonablyclear that what we are witnessing, in the
cataso exercise, are the first stages of an administrativecrystallizationof per-

sonal surnames.And the geography of this crystallizationtraced,almost per-

fectly, the administrativepresence of the Florentinestate. While one-thirdof
the households in the city declareda second name, the proportiondroppedto
one-fifth in secondarytowns, and then to a low of one-tenthin the countryside.
The small, tightly-knitvernacularworld had no need for a 'propername': such
names were, for all practicalpurposes,official names confined to administra-
tive life. Many of the inhabitantsof the poorest and most remote areasof Tus-
cany-those with the least contact with officialdom-only acquiredfamily
names in the seventeenthcentury.Nor were fifteenth-centuryTuscansin much
doubtaboutthe purposeof the exercise; its failurewas largelydue to theirfoot-
draggingandresistance.As the case of Florenceillustrates,the namingproject,
like the standardizationof measurementsandcadastralsurveys,was very much
a purposefulstate mission.
England, Scotland,and Wales:Private Property,

Primogeniture,and Law Enforcement
Even in Englandand Scotland, where patronymstook several centuriesto de-
velop, therewas a methodto the madness.If patronymsemergedsolely for lo-
cal, individualrecognitionpurposes,thena system of non-hereditarysecondary
appellationswould have sufficed. However, the surnamesystem that emerged
involved the use of hereditaryand fixed last names. This fact is crucial to un-
derstandingthe importanceof patronymswith respect to the state. Indeed, the
developmentof patronymshelped enforce privatepropertyrights,advancepri-
mogenitureregimes, and secure the ability of the stateto make its subjectsleg-
ible to its gaze.
The use of last names did not become common until well after the Norman
Conquest.Social normsdeveloped by the twelfth centurydictatedthat it was a
disgracefor a propergentlemannot to have a last name.15The use of patronyms
then spread, albeit unevenly, with the implementationof the poll tax under
Richard1116 and the legal requirementof baptismalregistrationby HenryVIII.
A closer analysisof the process of surnamediffusionalso revealsthe link be-
tween the English naming system and the securingof privatepropertyrights.
In a bargainthatreplicatesitself in many other nations,the aristocracygained
security for their propertyrights by adoptingheritablepatronyms.Their new
legal identitywas a political resourcein theirclaim to propertyin land and of-
fice. By the middle of the thirteenthcentury,a large proportionof large and
medium landownersin Englandpossessed hereditarylast names.An examina-
tion of Exchequerand Chanceryrecordslisting feudal landholdersreveals that
most of these patronymswere derived from the lands possessed by the their
bearers.17
It is significant to note that in the century or two following the reign of
William the Conqueror,therewas a greatdeal of uncertaintyregardingthe sta-
tus of large land grantsmade by the King. As RichardMcKinley notes,

Howfarhis grantsweregrantsof property wasperhapsnotclear.

in fee andinheritance
In these circumstances, anythingwhichhelpedto stressthe hereditarycharacterof
tenurewaslikelytobeviewedwithfavourbylandowners, andtheacquisition of ahered-
itarypatronym especiallyonederivedfroma landedfamily'sestates,wouldobviously
havethiseffect... [Thus,theadoptionof patronyms was]partof a generaltrendfrom
themto theconsolidation of theirpositionas hereditary
propertyowners.18
The link between land and last names is furtheremphasized by the types of
names introducedby the Normanswhen they invadedBritain:they were almost
all territorialin derivation.Indeed,
[t]hefollowersof Williamthe Conqueror werea prettymixedlot, andwhilesomeof
thembroughtthenamesof theircastlesandvillagesinNormandy withthem,manywere
adventurers of differentnationalities
attractedtoWilliam'sstandard bythehopeof plun-
der,andpossessingno familyorterritorial namesof theirown.Thoseof themwhoac-
quiredlandsin Englandwerecalledaftertheirmanors,whileothertookthenameof the
officestheyheldorthemilitarytitlesgivento them,andsometimesa youngersonof a
Normanlandowneron receivinga grantof landin his newhomedroppedhis paternal
nameandadoptedthatof his newlyacquiredland.19
Patternsof surnameadoption also reveal a close link between primogeniture
and namingpractices.For example, duringthe twelfth and thirteenthcenturies
it was not uncommonthata seniorbranchof a family would continueto use the
hereditarysurname while the junior branches would adopt new patronyms,
since they no longer had any propertyright in the main family estate.20Fur-
thermore,the reorganizationof the system of landownership,the establishment
of a formal system of primogeniture,and the developmentof inheritedcopy-
hold tenurefor manorialland underthe reign of EdwardI helped to accelerate
the use of last names. The last name became, in this context, anotherway of
displaying paternityand, hence, inheritancerights. More generally,the adop-
tion of permanentpatronymsretraced,geographically,the growingpresenceof
the Crownand its agents. It occurred"sooneramong the upperclasses thanthe
lower, and soonerin the souththanthe north,"21sooner in the large towns than
in the countryside.The greaterthe contactwith the Crown-craftedworldof doc-
uments,rolls, taxes, conscription,wills, and deeds, the greaterthe need for un-
ambiguousdesignations.
On rareoccasions, one gets a glimpse, like a fly caughtin amber,of the state-
based process of crystallization.A Welshmanwho appearedbefore an English
judge in the early sixteenthcenturyduringthe reign of Henry VIII, was asked
his name. He replied, in the Welsh fashion, "ThomasAp [son of] William,Ap
Thomas,Ap Richard,Ap Hoel, Ap EvanVaughan."He was reprimandedby the
judge to "leave the old manner. .. whereuponhe aftercalled himself Moston,
accordingto the name of his principalhouse, and left that name to his posteri-
tie."22One imagines, however,thatthis newly mintedadministrativelast name
remainedall but unknownto Thomas's neighbors.
This small episode fromWales alertsus to the fact that local, vernacularap-
pellations persist and co-exist, often for long periods, alongside official nam-

ing practices.Eachnameis appropriateto a particularsphereof social relations,

certainencounters,and situations.Local namingpracticesrarelyif ever disap-
pear completely; instead, they remainrelevantto a diminishingsocial sphere.
The slippagebetween official namingandvernacularpracticeis apparentin the
institutionof the telephone book in countrieswhere permanentpatronymsare
recentcreations.23As encountersgrow with the extra-localworld, the world of
official documentsand lists (e.g., tax receipts, militaryeligibility lists, school
documents,propertydeeds and inventories,birth, marriageand death certifi-
cates, internalpassports,courtdecision, legal contracts),so also does the social
circumferenceof official patronyms.Large segments of social life that might
previously have been successfully navigatedwithout documents, and accord-
ing to customarypractice,are now impossible withoutthe papertrail, stamps,
signatures,and forms on which the authoritiesinsist. The state creates irre-
sistible incentives for calling oneself afterits fashion.
Citizenship, Identity, and State Administration

The logic and geographyof the adoptionof surnames and, later, permanent
patronymsin Francewas littledifferentthanin Englandor Florence.In medieval
Languedoc,forexample,only a few names(Guillaume,Bernard,Raimond,Pierre,
Pons) mightdesignatethreequartersof the male population.Nobles increasingly
adoptedsurnames(not yet a nom de famille) to distinguishthe eldest, inheriting
son. In this fashion,the use of surnamesand,later,stablenomsdefamille prolif-
erated,firstamongthe nobility,in the largetowns,andamongthe propertied.The
professionalagent of this transformationwas the notairewho functionedas the
local record-keeperandfor whom precisionof identitywas essential.24The fif-
teenth centurycase of MarinGuerre,made famous in film, is precisely about
the greatdifficulty of establishingidentities,especially among mobile popula-
tions. When, much later,birthcertificatesbecame more common,it was forbid-
den for a subjectto changehis or her name withoutpermissionfromthe Crown.
More broadly,the link between state-makingand state-namingis so strong
that one might, in fact, use the synoptic legibility of permanent,registered
patronymsas a reliableproxy for the degree of statepresence.Here a long-run,
time-elapserecordwould show the fissures andbreakpointsof state saturation.
Thatrecordwould show, for Britain,thatprojectsof legibility tendedto stum-
ble in the hills, wherethey encounteredecologies andpopulationsthatwere dis-
tinct culturallyand linguistically.The hills were, as Braudelhas emphasized,
bastions of relatively autonomouslocal societies.
Fortheremancanlive outof reachof thepressuresandtyranniesof civilization,its so-
cial andpoliticalorderits monetaryeconomy.Heretherewas no landednobilitywith
... powerfulroots... Therewasnotighturbannetwork,so no administration,notowns
in thepropersenseof theword,andno gendarmes we mightadd... Thehillswerethe
refugeof liberty,democracy, andpeasantrepublics.25
Inaccessibility, demographicdispersal, poverty, and active resistance meant
that permanentpatronyms (not to mention standardizedplace names) came

late to the hills of Wales and Scotland. The higher the hills, the furtherfrom
lowland centers of administration,the later their arrival.At the risk of over-
generalization,it might be said that the more precociousthe state-making,the
earlierthe appearanceof permanentpatronyms.26Thus they appearcompara-
tively early in Italy, France,and Englandand later in Sweden, Germany,Nor-
way, and Turkey.In many colonized countries,it occurredeven later;in some
cases it has hardlybegun.27Withineach political context, it is reasonablyclear
that the permanentpatronymradiatesout from the administrativecenter at a
tempo that is conditionedby 'stateness': first in the capital, first at the top of
the statusladder,first in moderninstitutions(e.g., schools) and last in margin-
al areas (mountains,swamps), among the lower classes, among the marginal-
ized and stigmatized.
Once deeds, wills and testaments,propertytransfers,and certain contracts
are subjectto statevalidation,therearepowerfulincentivesfor becoming a leg-
ible subject.And yet, at the same time, the classic fear of the state as taxer and
conscriptorcontinuedto provide much of the populationwith continuingrea-
sons for remainingillegible. As late as 1753, the British Parliamentdefeated
a census bill over fears of more taxation and, five years later, a bill for the
"mandatoryregistrationof births,marriages,and deaths."Contrastthis effec-
tive resistancein Englandwith the Crown'scolonial policy in Irelandnearly a
centuryearlierwhen WilliamPetty conducteda comprehensivesurveyof land,
buildings,people, andcattlein orderto facilitateseizureandcontrol.Whereau-
tocracy or conquest permit state officials to pursue projects of legibility, un-
hamperedby consultation,they are likely to proliferateearlier and more ex-
tensively, thoughthey may provoke resistanceand rebellion.
War,because of the exceptionaldemandsit makes on the mobilizationof re-
sources,is the greathandmaidenof all forms of legibility, includingpermanent
patronyms.Mobilizationfor war, as CharlesTilly demonstrates,impelled the
early modernstateto abandonindirect,tributaryrule throughpowerful,and of-
ten recalcitrant,intermediariesand,instead,directlyseize the militaryresources
it needed.28What the state requires,of course, is far more thanjust conscripts
(who arehopefully,unambiguouslyidentified).Fielding a 60,000-man armyin
the late seventeenthcentury would have required,for its men and its 40,000
horses, nearly a millions pounds of food a day: a quartermaster'snightmare.
The task demandedimpressivefeats of organizationandexpenditure.The mere
grain needed to keep this army in the field, let alone armedand clothed, cost
the equivalentof the wages of 90,000 ordinarylaborers.This last requirement
meanttaxationnets of finer and finer mesh to enumeratereal property,wealth,
commercial exchange, and above all, the individuals who would bear the re-
sponsibilityfor paying and fighting.
Modern Citizenshipand Statecraft:The UneasyBargain
If state-makingfor the purposesof taxation,police control, and war were the
greatincentives to projectsof legibility in ancientregimes everywhere,the rise

of democraticcitizenship and modernist social engineering requiredentirely

new forms of legibility. The reach of the modernstate, togetherwith its ambi-
tions to social reform,gave rise to state lenses with far greaterresolving pow-
er than any pre-modernregime.
The great emancipatory step of the French Revolution's Declaration of
HumanRights createda new subject/citizen.Whereas,before, even the most
intrusive absolutist regimes were obliged to work through social intermedi-
aries-clergy, nobles, and wealthy burgers-the revolutionaryregime sought
a direct, unmediatedrelationshipto the citizen. This new citizen was an ab-
stract,unmarkedindividualwho was the bearerof equal rightsbefore the law.
Universal citizenship implied, in turn,that a citizen be uniquely and reliably
distinguishableas an individualand not as a memberof a community,manor,
guild or parish.Universalrights signified, in turn,universalduties vis-a-vis the
state-duties which includeddirect,universalconscriptionand taxation.
This extension of citizenship,coupled with legibility, was partand parcel of
the internationalizationof the French Revolution carried by the forces of
Napoleon.Prussia'slaw, passed in 1812, encouragedthe adoptionof patronyms
by all membersof the Jewish faith. Ostensibly in the progressive spirit of the
Enlightenment,the Jewish populationwould receive citizenship in exchange.
The connectionbetween universalcitizenshipand the taking of a name proper
to a legal state identityis nowhereclearerthanfor the Jews in CentralEurope.
Despite the widespreaduse of fixed andhereditarypatronymsin Europeby the
nineteenthcentury,one key grouplackedlast names-the Ashkenazim.The no-
madic,Yiddish-speakingJewish populationof centralandnorthernEurope,the
Ashkenazimhad managedto retaintheir ancient patronymicsystem since the
Biblical era. However, duringthe nineteenthcentury,Austria,France,Prussia,
Bavaria,and Russia all imposed modernsurnamesystems on theirJewish pop-
ulations. The motives for such policies varied, but generally focused on the
adoptionof a registeredlegal patronymas a conditionof citizenshipand eman-
cipation. The new surnamesystem enabled governmentsmore easily to levy
and collect taxes, regulatebusinesses, conscriptfor militaryservice, and con-
trol movements,29 in returnfor which the Jewish populationwould receive full
citizenshipfor its cooperation.Drawingon Prussiancouncilor-of-warChristian
Wilhelmvon Dohm's memorandum'Onthe Civic Bettermentof the Jews' from
1781, severalplans were advancedto establisheconomic and legal equalityfor
the Jewish population.Although these plans differedin a varietyof ways, they
all agreedon one point: "no proposedlaw fail[ed] to declare an official choice
of nameto be obligatory"30for citizenshiprights.Indeed,the eventualedict that
passed gave the Jewish populationcitizenship in Prussiabut only if they bore
firmly fixed patronyms.
Soon after 1812, more insidious motives came to light. As Dietz Bering
points out, "immediatelyafter the Jews had chosen fixed surnames,attempts
were made to secure via the names the dwindling recognizabilityof the Jews

as Jews."31The liberality of 1812 edict gave way to a new law passed on 22

December 1833, which requiredall Jews to adopta surname,notjust those who
sought naturalization.Furthermore,the governmenttook steps to assure that
previously adoptedlast names by the Jewish populationwere in line with new-
ly adoptedones. Governmentappointedcommitteesforced the Jewish popula-
tion to accept patronymsthat the governmentchose for them, such as Him-
melblau, Rubenstein, Bernstein, Hirsch, and Loew. Furthermore,numerous
ministerialreportsin the 1830s and 1840s demandedthe enactmentof a penal
clause to prevent membersof the Jewish faith from alteringtheir last names.
By 1845, laws were passed to renderthe Jewish patronymin Prussiaa closed
list. Jewish last names took upon an immutablequality.It was not long before
"theJews, for whom in 1812 the gates of the legal ghetto had been opened only
half-heartedlyand not even completely,were to be imprisonedagain in anoth-
er ghetto:one of names."32
By 1867, all loopholes were closed. A Royal Cabinetordersigned on 12 July
1867 gave districtpresidentsthe right to confirm any patronymchanges that
resultedfrom membersof the Jewish faith convertingto Christianity.The or-
der made it increasinglydifficult to alter a surnamethroughreligious conver-
sion. Thus, the democratizingrevolutions of 1848 and other reformsplayed a
role both in emancipatingand in controllingthe populationthat had previous-
ly been illegible. The Prussianstate wanted permanentpatronymsnot only to
identify uniquecitizens, but also to code for religious background.When Ger-
manyimplementedthe Final Solution,the closed list of Jewishpatronymsmade
the task of genocide terrifyinglysimple.
By the mid-nineteenthcenturythe idea of universalmanhood suffragewas
joined, in the West,with a high-modernistideology requiringentirelynovel lev-
els of interventioninto society. Once the improvementof society itself (its
health, skills, well being, intelligence, safety,communitylife, housing, morals,
etc.) became an importantstateproject,a wholly new level of legibility was re-
quired. It is one thing to round up a handful of recruitsand seize part of the
wheatharvest;it is quite anotherto vaccinate,block-by-block,the poorerquar-
ters of a teeming city, to send disabilitychecks to those (and only those) with a
specific handicap,or to createan epidemiologicaldatabaseto identify raredis-
eases. High modernistintrusionstypicallyrequirefine-grained,discriminating,
unambiguousforms of identification.The preferencesof administrators,left to
their own devices, are nearlyalways serial numbersof one kind or another:an
infinite, discriminating,continuous series, simple to apply and designed for
maximumsynoptic legibility.
TwoColonial Cases
Whathappenswhen a modernizingstate with large ambitionsencountersa so-
ciety that is largely opaque? The starkestversion of this encounteris met in
colonial situationswhere an authoritarian,mobilizing state faces a society at

once resistantand uncharted.Here, confrontinga populationwith few, if any,

formalrightsto representation,stateofficials arefree to invent schemes of nam-
ing thatsuit theirends, thoughimplementingthem successfully is anothermat-
ter altogether.
We examine two such colonial cases, separatedfrom one anotherby rough-
ly a half century:the creationof permanentpatronymsfor Native Americansin
the United States aroundthe turnof the centuryand the attemptby the Cana-
dian governmentto craftlegible identitiesfor the Inuitpopulationin the 1950s.
Each scheme, seemingly simple in conception, became in practice a baroque
tangle of contradictionand confusion. The schemes were, of course, intended
to create unambiguous(male) personal identities legible to officials. The im-
mediate purposesanimatingeach naming exercise varied:the Bureauof Indi-
anAffairswas hopingto createand stabilizea new, privatepropertyregime and,
not incidentally,seize more land from the reservations;the Canadianofficials
hoped to intervene more discriminatinglyto promote their vision of welfare,
health,and development.Whatthe exercises share,however,is an overarching
culturalproject:to fashion and normalizea standardpatriarchalfamily-system
deemed suitable to their vision of citizenship, propertyrights, and civilized,
moral conduct.
TheRenamingof Native Americans

The story of conquest,particularlyin Europeansettlercolonies where the con-
querorsheld overwhelmingpower, could be writtenas a vast projectof renam-
ing the naturalworld.Presto!Native namesfor flora,fauna,insects, mountains,
valleys, birds were effaced and replacedby the nouns and taxonomies of the
conquerors.This process, too, is a projectof legibility, a transferof knowledge
in which the mystifying (to Europeans)hieroglyphics of native naming prac-
tices was replaced by importedpractices transparentto Europeansand, now,
mystifying to the conquered.Comprehensivere-labelingis a pre-conditionfor
the transferof power, management,and control.33
Nowhereis this hegemonicprojectmore apparentthanin the effortto rename
the individual'nativesubjects'of this colonial enterprisein a fashionthatwould
allow the colonizers to identify each (male!) unambiguouslyas a legal person.
To graspthe importanceand scope of this undertaking,its function in promot-
ing legibility and its role as a civilizationaldiscourse,it is helpful to appreciate
just how illegible Native Americannamingpracticeswere to Europeans.
Illegibility
Officials encountered,among 'Indians,'what they considered a radical insta-
bility and plurality of names. As in many small stateless societies, a person
would have several names dependenton the situationof address(e.g. among
age-mates,between generations,among close kin) and these names would of-

ten change over time. A child who ran screaminginto the teepee on seeing a
bear might be called "Runs-from-the-Bear." Lateron, if she rides a horse from
which others have been thrown, she might be called "Rides-the-Horse."A
hunterwho was called "Five Bears" may be called "Six Bears" when he has
killed another.34Researcherstracingsurnameadoptionamongthe Weagamow
Ojibwanoted the pluralityof names, in this case partlydue to contactwith Eu-
ropeans.The same individualwas variouslyknown as FreedSmith,Banani,Ni-
zopitawigizik, and FredrickSagachekipoo.35
The pluralityof names, as the previous example illustrates,was not simply
a consequence of indigenous naming practices;it was substantiallyincreased
by overlappingjurisdictionsand by problemsof transliteration.An individual
might have one or anotherof his names recordedby several authorities:a trad-
ing post clerk, a missionary,a tribal scribe, or a military or civilian adminis-
trator.Each name might be differentand, if the people in questionwere migra-
tory,the places of registrationwould vary.Imaginetryingto pin down the iden-
tity of persons who have five or six names and who are constantly on the
move!36 Here, of course, it is importantto recall that the recordingof names
was either an attemptat translationinto English (e.g., Six Bears) or a stab at
transliterationfor which there were no fixed rules. The result, in both cases,
were names that bore an indifferentrelationshipto the indigenous appellation
they purportedto transcribe.37In the case of translation,even an accurateone,
the namebecamenothingmorethana nonsense syllable for non-Englishspeak-
ing Indians.In the case of transliteration,the problems were compoundedby
large phonological differences between English and native tongues. Thus, in
the case of the Severn Ojibwa, such differencesproducedexotic local render-
ings of English given names:e.g., Flora = Pinona;Hector = Ehkitah;Telma =
Temina;Isabel = Saben;Amos = Thomas;Louise = Anoys.38In the case of di-
rect transliterationof the indigenous names of different persons, as among
the Crow at the Devil's Lake Agency in North Dakota, one imagines that the
recordednames were only one of many possible phonetic renderings:"Eyau-
pahamini,""Iyayahamani,""Ecanajinka,""Wiyakimaza,""Wakauhotanina,"
Wasineasuwmani,""Tiowaste."Had there been standardrules for translitera-
tion and had the recordersof names followed these rules rigorously,the results
would have still been mystifying and unpronounceableto white officials.
There were two furtherproblems from the point of view of government
agents. First, even translatednames that could be understoodcame in an in-
compatibleformat.Take,for example, the names "Barkley-on-the-other-side,"
"Alice shoots-as-she-goes,""Irvie comes out of fog" (Montana,Crow). The
given name is clear, perhaps,but what should be taken as the surname:the
whole phrase,the last word ... ?
Secondly, and more seriously, the indigenous naming system only rarely
gave any indicationof sex or family relationship.Among the SouthernChey-
enne, the following "familynames"were recorded:

Father Gunaoi
Mother Deon
1st Daughter Halli
2nd Daughter Aisima
3rd Daughter Imaguna
1st Son Inali
2nd Son Zepko
The letterrecordingthese names notes thatthey do not indicatethe sex of the
children;in fact, whatthe writermeansis that,if sex is indicated,it is not a code
thathe understands.Even when translationinto Englishnamesprevailedamong
the Cheyenne,they very rarelyindicatedroles in a nuclearfamily so prizedby
officials. Thus, "CrowNeck," his 'wife' "WalkingRoad,"their sons "Clarence
Crow Neck," "RestedWolf,"and "HuntingOver."On the Arapahoroll: "Bear
Lariat,"his 'wife' "Mouse," sons "Sitting Man" and "CharlesLariat,"and
daughter"SingingAbove." As we shall see, such 'illegible naming practices
were unsuitedto the twin normativelegal requirementsof civilized life: prop-
erty ownershipand marriageby law.
Property:TheDawes Act
The experienceof Native Americansin the United States also suggests an inti-
mate link among the consolidationof the modem nation-state,ethnic assimila-
tion, the development of a private propertyregime, and the imposition of a
European-stylesurnamesystem. In their study of the Native Americansof the
Oklahoma, Dakota, and Wyoming Territories,Daniel Littlefield and Lonnie
Underhillexamine the natureof this link in the late nineteenthand early twen-
tieth centuries.39Priorto 1887, Native Americantribes had held land in com-
mon. However, with the passage of the GeneralAllotment Act of 1887, the
United States governmentrequiredNative Americansto receive individualti-
tle to land.Thoughrepresentedas a pro-assimilationpolicy thatwould give Na-
tive Americansthe ability to pursuethe AmericanDream,40the imposition of
a privatepropertyregime actuallycondemnedNative Americanscaughtin the
reservationsystem to generationsof poverty.41
Just as significantly,the new regime also representeda majorattackon the
power of tribalauthorities.42Propertyrightsaccompaniedthe rightto national
citizenship,makingthe NativeAmericanssubjectto the law of the UnitedStates
and not the laws of their tribe. Furthermore,with the eliminationof common
propertyrights, the tribalgovernmentslost a majorsource of theirpower. The
intermediaryof the tribewas removed,allowing the United Statesgovernment
to directlycontrolindividualNative Americans.
So long as the administrativeregime governingNativeAmericansresembled
indirectrule-so long as the aims of white officials were containmentand mil-
itary security-their seemingly promiscuous and illegible naming practices
were inconvenient,butnot fatal. Officials workedthroughtheirown Indianem-

ployees and a handfulof chiefs. They were dependenton "native-trackers" for

detailed informationor for locating a particularindividual.
All of this changedwith the Dawes Act of 1887, which authorizedthe Pres-
ident to allot 160 acres to each family head (presumptivelya male) on a reser-
vation. The title to the land would be held in trust for twenty-five years (ap-
parentlyto preventvictimizationof the new landownersby speculators)after
which it would revertto the allottee and his heirs. The goal, aside from seizing
more tribal land for white settlers,43was the culturalassimilation of Native
Americans. "(A)fter receiving his allotment, which signified his severance
from the tribeand its communalways, he would become subjectto the laws of
the state or territoryin which he resided."44In this sense, the Dawes Act was
"a mighty pulverizingengine for the breakingup of the tribalmass."45
Now thatmany Native Americanswould become property-owningcitizens,
no longer exclusively undertribaljurisdiction,but citizens with rights and ob-
ligations underthe laws of the largersociety, their illegibility as (male!) indi-
vidualswas no longer acceptable.Native Americannamingpracticeswere suit-
able for a common-propertyregime with a loose family structureand nomadic
ways. They were not suitablefor a newly created,sedentary,property-owning,
citizen yeomanry.As legal persons,Native Americansnow needed a legal iden-
tity properto the state.
The immediateimpetusbehinda standardizationof Indiannames was the in-
stitution of privatepropertyin land. Allotments meant deeds, titles, cadastral
surveys, and inheritance,and these, in turn, requiredan unambiguouslegal
identity-preferably one thatreflected close kinship ties (i.e., the 'normative'
nuclearfamily). Reformers,who believed allotmentswere the route to a nec-
essary and beneficial assimilation,were intent on avoiding the confusion and
litigation that customary naming practices might encourage. They set about
standardizingnames to make sure that land was registered under an unam-
biguous identity:names with permanentpatronymsthatwould reducethe legal
confusion aboutexactly who a deceased landowner'sheirs were.
What is noteworthyhere is the unavoidable,not to say coercive, logic join-
ing standardizedlegal identitieson the one handandproperty-ownershipon the
other.As one official wrote, the Americansystem of namingwas,
a goodsystem,forit fixes thenameof eachindividualafteranunvaryingfashion,and
establishesthe samepracticallybeyondalteration.... Wecannotsee how it couldbe
otherwisethanit is. Furthermore, andwhatmakesit so important, it is practicallythe
only systemknownto Americanlaw,andit is impossiblenot to see thatin all things,
prominentamongwhichis the transferof propertyor the bequeathing of the sameto
heirs,troublemustcometo thosewhodisregard his system.46
Once the allotmentswere decided on, a whole set of gears were inexorablyset
into motion. The process is a classic example of practical,systemic hegemony;
after all, propertydeeds, land records, and propertytaxes require synoptic,
standardizedforms of identification.
The enormousdiversity of Native Americannaming practices, varying de-

grees of contact and assimilation, and the huge variety of administrative

arrangementsunderwhich they were governed,creatednearlyinsurmountable
problemsof illegibility. The "Poet of the Prairie,"Hamlin Garland,made "the
naming of the Red Men as they became citizens" a personalmission, seeking
the confidence of PresidentTheodoreRoosevelt in carryingit out successfully.
Stressing the legal necessity of a legible surnamesystem for privateproperty
purposes and promoting the assimilation of Native Americans into Anglo-
Americansociety, Garlandbroughtthe renamingprojectto the President'sat-
tention on 1 April 1902.47In a letter urging Roosevelt to place George Bird
Grinnell (a naturalistand ethnographerof the Cheyenne) in charge of a com-
mittee to renameall Native Americans,he made his goals clear: he wanted to
establish a secure legal identity for all Indians: "It is imperativethat family
names shouldbe reasonableand accordingto some system. The whole list is an
inextricabletangle. ... They must be named accordingto their family relation
in orderto preventendless legal complication.... The work shouldbe done by
a centralcommittee and not by the variousclerks of the agencies."48
With Roosevelt's blessing, Garlandcooperatedwith variousmembersof the
executive branch to execute a thoroughrenamingproject among the Native
Americansresidingin the Territories.The overridingconcernwith establishing
a systematic, centralizedformula for renamingwas echoed by The Commis-
sioner of IndianAffairs, Thomas J. Morgan,in 1890. Although "thecommand
to give names to the Indiansand to establishthe same as far as possible by con-
tinuous use had been partof the Rules and Regulationsfor years past,"it had
not been widely appliedor generalized.49Morganproposedgeneralguidelines
for the renamingexercise. A furtherregulationdeploredthe lackadaisicalef-
forts to systematizeand enforce the new names, which left in theirwake a host
of confusing, unpronounceable,and insulting patronyms.He furtherscolded
both his subordinatesand his Native Americancharges:
SuchIndianagentsandsuperintendents of Indianschoolshavenotsoughtto impressthe
Indianpeoplewiththeimportance of havingtheirnamesfashionedafterthewhites,con-
sequentlytheyhavehadin thisdirectiontheoppositioninsteadof thecooperation of the
Indians.In thisthing,as in nearlyall others,theIndiansdo notknowwhatis bestfor
them.Theycan'tsee thatoursystemhasanyadvantages overtheirown,andtheyhave
foughtstubbornly againsttheinnovation.50
Morgan,Grinnell,and Garlandtried,by the standardsof the time, to be as ac-
commodatingas they could to indigenous naming practices, so long as they
conformed to minimal standardsof legibility. Morgan and Grinnell were not
opposed to retainingIndiannames providingthat they were not "too difficult
to pronounce."The rub,of course, was that"difficultto pronounce"referredto
the difficultyexperiencedby nativeEnglishspeakers.OtherwiseEnglishnames
and translationswere to be substitutedwhenever the original name was long
and/or difficult. Garlandagreed. Easily spoken names such as "To-re-ach"or
"Chonoh"might be retainedwhile others would requiretranslationand, fre-

quently,shorteningas well. "BlackBull" might be shortenedto "Blackbill"or

"Blackbell";"StandingBull" to "Stanbull";"AlbertSpotted-Horse"to "Albert
Spotted";"Black Owl" to "Blackall";"BraveBear"to "Bravber."A Christian
"givenname"was normallyappendedas a first name:e.g., "CharlesStanbull."
The Garlandproposal aimed to make all names "decent and reasonable,"to
show a legal connectionto the family. Brevity,ease of pronunciationto whites,
and "pleasantness"were emphasized values, all favoring legibility. Existing
names would be adoptedif they met this criteria.If not, family names might be
abbreviatedor even alteredand spelling would be made uniform.51As Garland
noted, the point was that "ourIndiansshould be entirelyrenamedaccordingto
some general system," retaining the Indians' own name whenever possible,
shorteningor modifying it so thatit can be spokenby the Red Man's neighbor,"
so thatit name(s) all childrenaftertheirfatheror a name chosen by theirmoth-
er."In short,he desired"a system which will show family relations,which will
meet the wishes of the redpeople andbe comprehensibleto the white people."52
The aim, Garlandwrote, was to starteach allottee with a decent andreasonable
name-names that, when translated,seemed demeaning (e.g., "Ghost-faced
Woman,""Drunkard.""Let them Have Enough," "Nancy Kills a Hundred,"
"RottenPumpkin,")were to be avoided.53
The CivilizationalProject
The renamingof Native Americanswas a 'civilizing project'in at least two re-
spects. The first is most obvious. The "RedMan"was being inducted,through
the Dawes Act, into a radically new life that would eventually lead, it was
hoped, to complete assimilation.Just as the pre-conditionof the emancipation
andfull citizenshipof the Jews in CentralEuropewas the legal adoptionof per-
manentpatronymsalong Christianlines, so was a fixed legal patronyma con-
dition of post-reservationlife. The creationof such a legal identitywas the nec-
essary 'universalgear' which would then engage the othergears of the official
machineryof the modernstate.
In 1819, Congress had established a "CivilizationFund" to introducethe
Indianto "thehabits and arts of civilization."In general, the Fund's goal was
to transformwhat were seen (often mistakenly) as exclusively "hunting-and-
gathering"culturesdependenton nomadismand communalownershipof land
into a sedentary,agrarian(and artisan)society based on privateproperty.The
former condition, requiringbravery,shrewdness, and honor were associated
with savagery,whereas a settled life with cultivatedpropertywas seen as the
handmaidenof civilization:" ... you may look forwardto the periodwhen the
savage shall be convertedto the citizen, when the huntershall be transformed
into the mechanic, when the farm, the workshop, the school-house, and the
churchshall adornevery Indianvillage; when the fruitsof industry,good order,
and sound morals shall bless every Indiandwelling."54As the Directorof the
Bureau of Ethnology John Wesley Powell reasoned, accomplishingthis work

requirednew names which "tendstronglytowardthe breakingup of the Indi-

an tribal system, which is perpetuatedand ever kept in mind by the Indian's
own system of names.""55 As a structureof physical confinementand surveil-
lance, the reservationsystem was itself not conceived as a project of cultural
autonomybut as a preludeto transformation."Restrictingthe tribesto a limit-
ed and permanentarea was a prerequisiteto successfully civilizing them."56
The second civilizing project-one embeddedin the formulafor renaming
the Indians-was the restructuringof the "family"to bring it into line with the
normativepatriarchyof their white Christianneighbors. Family and kinship
practicesvariedwidely among Native Americans,but it is safe to say thatthey
rarelyresembledthe codified religious and legal forms of the dominantsoci-
ety.57 Plural and serial unions, child-rearingby the extended family, and
changes in the composition of bands over time were common and only served
to confirmthe need for 'civilizing' efforts.
The illegibility of Native American kinship nomenclaturewas frequently
takenby the 'would-be civilizers' as a directindicationof confusion and disor-
der amongthe Indiansthemselves aboutkinshiprelations,not as a sign of a dif-
ferent kinship order. Just as the Spanish GovernorGeneralof the Philippines
in 1847 imposedpermanentpatronymson the premisethatthey would help Fil-
ipinos figure out who theircousins were (and avoid marryingthem), so did the
namersof the 'Red Men' imagine thatthey were helping their charges sort out
the primeval mess of their savage ways. Hamlin Garland,for example, sup-
posed that the mere absence of a common patronymjoining siblings was evi-
dence "thateach child stands alone in the world."58Writing of the Southern
Cheyennetribalroll, he declared,"Thewhole list is an inextricabletangle. For
example, practicallyonly one man can straightenout the family ramifications
among the Southern Cheyenne."59It is not entirely clear whether Garland
imagined that the Cheyenne themselves were in doubt abouttheirrelationship
to one another;but it is clearthathe believed thatthey,as well as the white man,
would be thankfulfor a kinshipterminologythatclarifiedmatters.Readingthe
correspondenceand official circularsof the time makes it appearthat the re-
formersbelieved that if they just got the kinship terminologyright, the actual
practices of Native Americans would soon fall in line with white, "civilized"
norms.60
BoardingSchools
Nowhere was the civilizational project more evident than in the boarding
schools set up for NativeAmericanschool children.The logic behindthe board-
ing school was preciselythe logic of the 'totalinstitution.'One mightflail away
at effecting small changes among masses of Native Americanson the reserva-
tion or, alternatively,concentrateon removing a smallernumberof childrenof
an impressionableage away from the contaminatinginfluence of the tribe and
into highly controlled,disciplinarysurroundings.By a reductionin scale, one

achieved a commensurateincrease in micro-controlof the environment.Here

the new elites could be shapedfrom the groundup, Pygmalion-fashion.61The
resultswere also more legible: so many graduated,so many literatein English,
so many taughtcertaincrafts and mechanicalskills, etc.
Like the militarymodel they mimicked, school techniqueswere meantto be
a shocking and comprehensivebaptism.The clothes they arrivedin were dis-
cardedand a "militarykit" was issued in its place; their diet was changed to a
Westernone; theirhair(often an importantculturalbadge) was forciblycut; fa-
cial paint was forbidden;time discipline was imposed; conversationin native
languages was severely punished;and, of course, new names were mandated.
A Sioux memoir of namingin the boardingschool capturesthe atmosphere:
The new recruit'sacquisitionof a uniformwas followedby the acquisitionof a new
name.Mostoftenthisoccurred Inthecaseof LutherStand-
onthefirstdayof instruction.
ingBear,heremembers thatonedaytherewerea lotof strangemarksontheblackboard,
whichaninterpreter explainedwerewhitemen'snames.Oneby one the studentswere
askedto approach theblackboard witha pointerandwereinstructed to choosea name.
Whena namewasselected,theteacherwroteit on a pieceof whitetape,whichwasthen
sewnonthebackof theboy'sshirt.WhenStandingBear'sturncame,he tookthepoint-
er andactedas if he wereaboutto touchanenemy.By theendof theclass,all thestu-
dentshadthenameof a whitemansewnon theirbacks.In thecaseof LutherStanding
Bear,he neededonlyto choosea firstnameandwasableto keeppartof hisIndianname
in Englishtranslation.
Not all theboardingschoolstudentshadthisluxury.62
As in many utopianschemes of standardization,the projectof renamingNa-
tive Americanswas a messy affair.It was common for one authorityto codify
names withoutnoting, in each case, the results of earliernamingexercises. Ef-
forts to createnew namesin the boardingschools to indicatepaternitywere sel-
dom coordinatedwith renamingon the reservationwhere the students'fathers
lived, thus leading to nearlyhopeless confusion. Two brothersnamedin sepa-
rate exercises might not be given the same last name. But, as in the case of the
Philippines, over several decades, the frequency of contact with officialdom
ensured that most Native Americans had legal names that conformed to the
Anglo-Americannormativepatriarchalorder.Practice, of course, was some-
thing else again.
Serial Numbersand SynopticOrder:The Case of the Inuit
Roughly half-a-centuryafter the Dawes Act, CanadianAuthorities set about
identifyingtheirmost nomadicandillegible population:the Inuit.Thanksto the
existence of one closely observedstudy,63some comparisonswith surnamecre-
ation among Native Americansin the United States are possible. The similari-
ties are more strikingthan the differences, which arise, it would seem, from
Canada'smore developed and centralizedfederal administration.
The Inuit, like many Native American groups, had naming practices that,
while perfectly adequatefor Inuit purposes,baffled the officials in charge of
rulingthem. Most Inuithad a single name, one thatmight, furthermore,change

more than once in the course of a lifetime. In common with many other peo-
ples, the Inuitbelieved in appeasingthe restless ghosts of the deceased and, to
this end, they strove to ensurethat a dead person's name was given to a newly
born infant as soon as possible. Gender-specificnames arose only undercolo-
nial rule and it was quite common to have a daughtergiven the name of an ad-
mired and recently deceased male, whetheror not he was a close relative.
Inuit names sounded odd and unpronounceableto European ears (e.g.,
Itukusukor Kilabuk)and, as in the United States,even when Europeanandbib-
lical names were adopted,phonological differencesmade transliterationa ten-
uous art. As early as 1935, well before a comprehensiverenamingwas pro-
posed, the difficulties had been noted. One official charged with following
migratingindividualsfrom one partof NorthernCanadato anothercomplained
to the Departmentof the Interior:
Therearefivedivisionsto thesettlementandI thinkthatif I leftit to getthenamesfrom
thenatives,eachhasa differentspellingforeachname.. .. It doesnotseemto easeour
troublesanythat[theInuit]havein recentyearstakentheirnamesfromthe Bible.A
goodexampleof thisis thecommonname"Ruth." Thenativecannotget his sounding
mechanismaroundthe letter"R"at the firstof a word.As a result,differentpersons
wouldwritedownthe followingwhenthe nativegave the child'sname,'Vrootee,"
"Olootie,""Alootah,"andotheralterations alongthe sameline. Toone whodoes not
know thempersonally, this makesit ratherdifficultwhen it comes to putting themin al-
phabetical order.64
To the problemof varianttransliterationsmust be addedthat of multiplejuris-

dictions. Names might be exotically and differentlycraftedby the NursingSta-
tion personnel,the Royal MountedPolice, and the school administration.
Like Native Americanpersonaland place names, Inuitnames offered a con-
densed reference-shelfof narrativeswhich, takenin the aggregateand expand-
ed on, amountedto local histories. Such names markedthe landscape and its
inhabitantsandcreateda local habitatrich in orderandmeaning,but largelyin-
accessible to outsiders.Projectsto re-label places and people in standardizing
ways carryat least three implications:they facilitateidentificationand control
by extra-local authorities;they help nest the locality in a largerpatternof re-
gional and nationalmeanings;and, finally, they overlay and often efface local
systems of orientation.As systematicre-mappingventures,they re-orientsome
actors, typically powerful state agents, and dis-orient others. The transferof
knowledge via synoptic legibility is, at the same time, always a culturalproject
of internalcolonialism.Thus, the 'tidyingup' of Inuitnomenclaturewent hand-
in-handwith the creationof boardingschools, the ban on Inuit drumdancing
and, in the case of the CoppermineInuit, a prohibitionof lip ornaments-ac-
tions all intendedto make the Inuit into national subjectsand citizens.
Unlike the United States government,which, in the 1890s, was preoccupied
with confinement,sedentarization,andlegal order,the Canadianstate,afterthe
Second WorldWar,was animatedas much by the delivery of services as by the

creationof legal persons.The Canadianwelfare state,thoughin its infancy,was

committedto providingsocial security,pensions, family allowances,vocation-
al schooling, and medical services for everyone, includingthe nomadic, illeg-
ible Inuit. Such discriminatinginterventionrequiredan equally discriminating
system capableof pinpointingeach individual.
Bureaucraticallyspeaking,the simplest system of identificationis the serial
number.Anything else is second best. Given half a chance, administratorsare
drawn to the arithmeticbeauty of a potentially endless series of consecutive
numbers. It eliminates, at a stroke, all the ambiguity and discretion which
plague any system of last names, for example how to transliteratenames not
previously written,what partof a name to consider as a patronym(e.g., "de la
Fontaine,Oscar"or "Fontaine,Oscarde la"; "McArthur"or "MacArthur").
Inspiredby the experienceof military"dog tags,"the Ministryof the Interi-
or at first devised for the illegible Inuita disk system. Each small fiberdisk had,
printedin relief, a crown, the words, "EskimoIdentification-Canada" and then
a letterand a number:e.g. "E-6-2155." The "E-6 would standfor "EastZone,
District 6" indicatingthe administrativezone of the North where this particu-
lar Inuit had been sighted, registered, and tagged! The succeeding number,
"2155," was a personal identificationreference (as a social security number
might be in the United States) which directed an official to the appropriate
dossier containing all the informationof interest to the state (name, aliases,
birth-date, civil status, vaccinations, criminal record, pension and welfare
records,etc.).
The intentionof the administratorswas thateach Inuitwould wear his or her
disk on a necklace;in fact, they were manufacturedwith a hole stampedin them
for this purpose.Analogies with the military"dogtag"system were not implicit
but quite conscious. The 1935 proposal noted that: "My humble suggestion
would be, thatat each registration,the child be given an identity disk along the
same lines as the armyidentity disk and the same insistence that it be on at all
times. The novelty of it would appealto the natives."65
Nor is the analogy superficial.The military"dogtag,"like the hospitaliden-
tificationbracelet,is worn on the body precisely to identify someone who can-
not, or will not, identify himself. It identified the dead or unconscious soldier,
or the one whose remainsare otherwiseunidentifiable.The Inuit disk, like the
militarydog tags, was invented as a device for outsidersto keep track-in the
face of muteness, death, or willful resistance-of the people or objects so or-
dered.Not expected to speak for themselves, the fugitive huntingand trapping
Inuit were to be brandedlike migratorybirds so as to tracktheir movements.
Hadthe technologyof the age permitted,thereis little doubtthatofficials would
have preferredsmall electronictransmittersand global positioning systems to
monitorall movementby satellite.
Imposition of the disk system was seen as the key to all development and
welfare amongthe Inuit.66The disk numbers,distributedexclusively to the Inu-

it following the 1935 census, were the templatefor assembling all vital statis-
tics abouthealth,education,income, crime, and population.In orderto make it
stick, officials insisted that the disk numberbe used in all official correspon-
dence and on all birth,marriage,and deathcertificates.Evidence thatthe Inuit
did not like the disk system67and suggestionsfor alternativeswere rebuffedby
its supporters,who urged stricterenforcement:"In my opinion there is no ne-
cessity whatsoeverto replacethe presentidentificationdisk with a medal or to-
ken of any kind. As I have been pointing out for twenty years, once the Eski-
mo realizesthatthe white man wantshim to memorizean identificationnumber
and use it in all tradingand othertransactions,the Eskimo will fall into line."68
It was a very rareInuit,indeed, who wore the disk aroundhis or her neck.69
Many Canadianagencies did not insist on the use of disk numbersin theirdeal-
ings with Inuit, and the utopian single identifying numberfell graduallyinto
disuse. The Inuitcomplainedthattheirchildrenat school were askedto call out
their disk numberratherthan a name and that they occasionally got mail ad-
dressed to their disk numberalone.
Finally,in 1969,the disk systemwas formallyabandoned,anda three-member
board was createdto take charge of establishingfamily names and their con-
sistent spelling. Thus was born "ProjectSurname,"a crash programto create
and/or registerproperpatronymsfor all Inuitbefore the Centennial.Those of-
ficials for whom unambiguousidentificationwas paramountarguedfor retain-
ing the disk scheme-"the alternativewould be an unacceptablelevel of con-
fusion."70"What about variable spellings of the same name?" they asked.
"Whatabout people using the same name?"(One official pointed out that in
Pongnirtungthere were three women named Annia Kilabuk.) "How will we
keep trackof people who move around?""How do we know we arepaying the
right person?"71
Unlike disk numbers,patronymsdid not lend themselves to a smooth, un-
ambiguous series. A brochure explained why European-style names were
preferable:Inuitnameswere too hardto pronounce,too long, andtoo similar.72
As with most crashprograms,implementationwas chaotic and coercion fairly
high. One official told the startledInuit that everyone had to have a last name
by the time he left the settlementthe same afternoon:"I was in BakerLake ...
There were 800 people. It was just like a sausage factory . .. 'Do you have a
surname?What'syourfather'sname?OK. You're [new name]'... ProjectSur-
name ended up by creatinga situationwhich is just horrendous."73
Serial numbers and permanentpatronymsare each civilizational projects.
But while the doling out of serial numbersbore an air of lofty abstraction,the
choosing of surnamesinvolved, as elsewhere, an implicitly culturalproject.
One primaryreason why Inuit names did not reflect sex and paternitywas be-
cause the Inuit simply did not live in standardnormativeEuropean-stylefami-
lies. (Nor, of course, did many Canadiansof Europeanancestry!)The scolding
tone of the administrativesummaryof Project Surnameadmittedas much. It
complainedof,

a totallackof understandingamongtheEskimopeopleaboutthelegal,social,andmoral
underwhichallmembersof a familyareiden-
aspectsof names..... family-orsur-name,
tified,is unknown.Legalusage,ownershipof propertyundera familynameis impos-
sible... Marriagecustomshaveneverdevelopedin thesenseof the"Western civilized
as a
ethic," family unit hasno common name it Adoption
tying together. of childrenhas
presentedextremedifficulty.74
Adoption among relatives was very common and many Inuit childrenwere
namedto reflect their adoptiveparentsratherthan theirbirthparents.Nor was
the concept "headof family,"even as a formal status,particularlygermanein
the Inuitcontext. The desire of officials to create a viable system of identifica-
tion and get welfare checks to the right person [and avoid fraud]was germane
enough; but the desire to create a modernCanadianidentity for the Inuit and
musterthem, at least on paper,into a standard,normativefamily was at the very
core of ProjectSurname'slogic.
This exercise did not, of course, eliminateInuitnamingpractices.Whatit did
produce was rampantname pluralism.Many, perhapsmost, Inuit had an ad-
ministrativenamethatfollowed Europeanusage but also one or morelocal Inu-
it names, not recordedin any document,by which he or she was known local-
ly. Thus, most Inuitmove back and forthbetween a local identity with its own
codes and an administrativeidentitywith its own code. As the motherof a new-
born son explained,"It [a child's Inuitname] won't go on any recordat all. But
he will be known as anothername ... It's still followed today. Like right now
my own baby is named by three differentnames, which aren't going to be on
his birthcertificate."75
These two spheres of naming can coexist for long periods. Unlike the Inuit
'register'of names,however,the Canadianregisterof namesis underwrittenby
a state, an army,the police, and the law. The greaterthe necessity and frequen-
cy of the Canadiancode in Inuit lives, the greaterthe practical,daily hegemo-
ny of European-stylesurnames.
III. NAMES AND THE PRACTICAL HEGEMONY OF THE STATE
Just as industrializednations are extendinglong-standingprojectsof legibility

to the farreachesof theirperiphery,new states,with modernizingagendas,have
been inventing permanentpatronymsfor the first time. Other techniques of
identification,as we shall see, are now available. Most of them are more dis-
criminating,legible, and efficient than the propername. Nevertheless, to fol-
low the progress of legal naming throughoutthe world is to follow, simulta-
neously, the rise of regimes, which have plans for the mobilization and/or
improvementof theirpopulation.
ModernizationProjects
The modern Turkish republic of Kemal Ataturk decreed universal, legal
patronymsin the context of one of the most comprehensiveprojects of mod-
ernizationandWesternizationthe world has seen. Having "reformed"the clock

and the calendar,adopted the metric system, abolished feudal tithes, created
a national system of citizenship, and rewrittenthe legal code to bypass the
shari'a, Ataturk ordered the adoption of permanentlegal family names in
1934.76The creationof a powerful modernstate requireda system of meticu-
lous taxationandconscriptionthatimprovedon the techniquesof the Ottomans.
This objective, in turn,requiredlegible, personalidentities.As we have seen in
otherinstances,however, the mandatingof last names was partand parcel of a
vast culturalprojectdesigned to transformTurkeyinto a modernEuropeanna-
tion. To this end, Arabic script was replaced with Roman, words with Ural-
Altaic roots were emphasized,the wearingof the fez and the veil was banned;
Islam and, with it, the Islamic tithe (zakat) was dis-established.The adoption
of distinctively Turkishnames, as opposed to Islamic and, especially, Arabic
names was encouraged.77
The brusquelegal change was easier to bring aboutthanthe revolutionizing
of naminghabits.Turks(not to mentionthe manynationalminorities)hadmany
differentnames, some of which might change in the course of a lifetime. Lo-
cally, this posed no confusion as local residentsknew the names of theirneigh-
bors and could, if necessary,add qualifyingnicknamesto clear up any possible
misunderstanding.The new names co-existed with older namingpracticesfor
a long time, especially where contact with the state was episodic. Even at the
center,the adoptionof novel patronymsthreatened,if rigorouslyand suddenly
imposed, to provoke commercial and administrativechaos. Very few citizens
actuallyknew the new patronymsof theiracquaintances7"and, mercifully,the
Istanbul telephone book listed subscribersalphabeticallyby first name until
1950, fourteenyears afterthe patronymdecree. Nor was Turkeyuniquein this
regard.Authoritiesin Thailand,where permanentlast names were institutedin
the 1950s, also have a healthy respect for the importanceof practicalknowl-
edge. Names in the Bangkok phone directoryare still listed and alphabetized
by first name.
Fixing Names, Fixing Identities

So far we have examinedthe creationof names as official legal identitiesonly
in the context of Western-stylenaming practices.It should be perfectly clear,
however, thatthe legibility of names as legal identitiesis intrinsicto any proj-
ect of governancerequiringdiscriminatinginterventionin local affairs.Thus,
the conflict betweenparochialandoutsideauthorityandthe legibility questions
prevalentin the naming process are not merely vestiges of our past. Witness,
for example, the legal and policy issues surroundingthe creationof fixed iden-
tities in the relatively anonymous world of the Internet.The development of
Internet"cookies" to better track cyber-identities,the quest for a consistent
domain-nameregistrationsystem, andjudicial reformsaimed at awardingju-
risdictionalauthorityover the Internetto the courtsof modernnation-statesall
representearly efforts to make cyberspacelegible.

Meanwhile,the olderprocess of state-makingthroughnamingcontinues,of-

ten with non-Westernwrinkles.In Chinafor example,the contemporaryregime
confrontsa host of nationalities(fifty-six by official codification). Some have
no traditionof permanentpatronymsat all, some have many names and sur-
names, and still othershave family names thatdo not conformto Han-Chinese
usage. The standardizedChinese administrativesystem is no more able to ac-
commodateexotic minoritynames than was the Bureauof IndianAffairs able
to absorb-even after translation-the Crow name "Irviecomes-out-of-fog."
Confrontedwith Kachinminoritynamingpracticesat the southwestfrontierin
Yuna'anProvince,Chineseauthoritiesdo whatHamlinGarlanddid. They shoe-
horn Kachin practices into the nearest available standardChinese equivalent.
An ethnographerfrom Taiwan,studyingthe Kachin, describedhow they were
fitted into the grid.
Namesin officialrecordshaveto be ableto be writtenin Chinesecharacters;hencefam-
ily namesthataremono-syllables arechangedintoChinese(usuallysinglecharacter)
surnames. AmongtheZaiwa[sub-division of theKachin]"Muiho" is a commonandim-
portantsurnamewhose standardmatchingsurnamein Chineseis "he"[Wade-Giles
"Ho"],my ownsurname.79
For many of the isolated Kachin who have thus been conjuredby a Han ad-
ministratorinto "He(s)"or "Ho(s),"the Chinese record-keepingis of little mo-
ment.TheirHan administrativeidentityis invoked only on those infrequentoc-
casions when they have official business (e.g., taxation,contracts,conscription,
inheritanceof property)with the state.For the rest, for daily transactions,local
namingpracticesare perfectly satisfactory.
Initially,then, state schemes of namingmay hardlytouch the citizens whose
identities they aim to fix. "Name pluralism"may persist for centuries, with
state-devisedidentitiesbeing invoked for some purposes,and local vernacular
identitiesfor others.But we mustnot imaginethatofficial andvernacularnames
are on an equal footing. Official names have, in the final analysis, the weight
of the nation-stateand its associated institutionsarrangedbehind them. Here
the concept of "traffic patterns"as applied by Benedict Anderson to state-
sponsoredidentitiesis instructive."Trafficpatterns"are what make imaginary
administrativeidentities into the solid realities of social life. Thus the Dutch
colonizers in Indonesia"identifiedcertainresidentsas Chinese [Chinezen]al-
though they were part of a huge diasporathat did not think of themselves as
Chinese," nor were they so thought of. Nevertheless, the Dutch government,
workingon their 'ethnoscape,'proceededto organize,"thenew educational,ju-
ridical, public-health,police and immigrationbureaucraciesit was building on
the principle of ethnic-racial hierarchies. The flow of subject populations
throughthe mesh of differentialschools, courts,clinics, police-stations,andim-
migrationoffices created 'traffic-habits'which, in time, gave real social life to
the state's earlierfantasies."80
Vernacularnames, like vernacularidentities, do not typically disappear;but

32 JAMES C. SCOTT, JOHN TEHRANIAN, AND JEREMYMATHIAS
state namingsystems typically become hegemonicfor severalreasons, all hav-

ing to do with the institutionof the modem nation-state.The statecan insist that
one use one's legal name in all official acts:e.g. certificationof birth,marriage,
and death,inheritance,legal contracts,last wills and testaments,taxes, written
communicationsto officials. Correspondingly,the greaterthe frequencyof in-
teractionwith the state and state-likeinstitutions,as we have seen, the greater
the sphereof public life in which the official name is the only appropriateiden-
tity.
Take,for example, the birthcertificate.Along with the deathcertificate,it is
a remarkableand very recent innovation;even in the West, people managed,
until quite recently, to be born and die without official notice! The birth cer-
tificate is the first official recordingof a proper,[paper]legal identity and it is
governedby many regulations.Careis takento devise a propersurnamewhen
the normalparentalagreementis lacking: "In cases where the mother and fa-
therhavejoint custody of the child and disagreeon the selection of a surname,
the surnameselected by the father and surnameselected by the mother shall
both be entered on the certificate, separatedby a hyphen, with the selected
names enteredin alphabeticorder."81
Notice, also, that the normal, modern, institutional setting for birth and,
hence, for the birthcertificateforms, is the maternitywardof a hospital,where
state-like bureaucraticroutines for the collection of vital statistics prevail.
When,by contrast,most childrenarebornat home, with or withoutprofessional
care, the official registrationof birthsis thatmuch more complex. Modern,for-
mal institutions are handmaidensto the creation and hegemony of official
patronyms.The hegemony of state-structuredinstitutionssuch as schools, so-
cial security, military service, taxpaying, propertyregistrationand transfer
provide the "trafficpatterns"that ensure the dominanceof state-identification
practices.It is in most citizens' interestto be duly recordedwhenever state in-
stitutionshave the power to provide a benefit or to diminish or cancel a penal-
ty. Official identities,then, constitutean iron cage enclosing a greatdeal of so-
cial life in the contemporarymodernstate.
IV. VERNACULAROPTICS, STATE OPTICS

Centralto the institutionalhegemony of the nation-statehas been the projectof
synoptic legibility. Its hard-won achievement against dogged resistance, an
achievement requiringmassive institutionalinvestments in creating records
and the personnelto managethem, representsthe armatureof stateknowledge.
Withoutthis synoptic grasp,withoutthe field of vision it affordsofficials, most
of the activities of the modernstate, from vaccinatingschoolchildrento arrest-
ing criminals(or political opponents)would be inconceivable.
The early modernstatefaced a populationwhose land tenurepractices,iden-
tity,production,wealth, andhealthwere largelyopaque.An exotic tangle of lo-
cal measurementpractices,nicknames,customaryrights,andformsof local ex-

change thwartedany monarch'sscheme to mobilize resources for war or for

public works. At the very least, officials at the center were hostage to the co-
operationof local authoritiesfor what intelligencethey chose to offer.We have
examinedthe creationof the permanentpatronymas an essential, thoughrudi-
mentary,element in this projectof synoptic legibility. In a largerstudy,the per-
manentpatronymwould take its place beside a host of otherstate 'opticaltech-
nologies': the standardizationof weights andmeasures,the centralizationof the
legal code, the creationof uniformcadastralmaps andpropertyregisters,a uni-
form tax code, a common currency,and the promotionof a standarddialect.82
Each of these projects representsa transferof power and a corresponding
switch in codes. The transferof power, in termsof statecapacity,is obvious, as
is the fact that it is achieved against opposition.As socio-linguists are fond of
saying, 'the differencebetween a dialect and a nationallanguage is that a na-
tional language is a dialect with an army.'Nation-states, even revolutionary
ones, could not simply decreeprojectsof synoptic legibility; they had to be en-
forced. In 1791, the RevolutionaryState in Francerequiredall prefecturesto
furnish the "name, age, birthplace,residence, profession, and other means of
Only three of 36,000 com-
subsistence of all citizens living in its territory."83
munes replied!While the Napoleonic State a decade laterdid achieve betterre-
sults, it requiredheroic efforts against substantialodds.
The switch in codes is vital. Both vernacularsystems and state systems of,
say, namingand measurement,are codes. The questionis who holds the key to
the code, who can breakit. In the case of vernacularnaming, as with the Inuit
or Native Americansin the United States, the keys to the code are held local-
ly-and often, but not always, fairly democratically-while the code remains
an opaque hieroglyph to outsiders. In the most synoptic forms of identifica-
tion-for example the serial number--the keys to the code are held by spe-
cialists (clerks,lawyers, statisticians)while the code typically remainsa hiero-
glyph to local, non-officials. Such specialists might be termed 'trackers,'but
they tracksynopticforms of knowledge thatareproperto the modernstate.Ac-
cess to these trackersordinarilydepends on political influence, financial re-
sources, or both.
The 'bird's-eyeview' achieved by official projects of legibility is best seen
as a neutralinstrumentof state capacilty.Synoptic views are by no means neu-
tral in how they privilege and empower state officials over local citizens and
subjects.But they areutterlyneutralwith respectto the purposesfor which they
are used. They are, as we shall see, the basis for beneficial interventionsthat
save lives, promotehumanwelfare, withoutwhich contemporarylife is scarce-
ly imaginable.On the otherhand, they enhancethe capacityof the stateto car-
ry out the most fine-tuned and gruesome projects of surveillanceand repres-
sion. In between these extremes lie the vast majorityof uses: uses with both
beneficial and troublingconsequences.
Let us take the unambiguousidentificationof individuals throughsystem-

atic, standardizedbirthrecords. This capacity,along with hospital records of

birthdefects, has existed for some time in Norway and has allowed epidemiol-
ogists to learnratherprecisely how likely it is that a motherwith a birthdefect
herself will give birthto a child with a defect.84Having a complete recordof
nearly half-a-millionbirthsfrom 1967 to 1982 (8,192 of which involved birth
defects), researcherswere able to establishthatwhile women with birthdefects
were more likely than women without to bear childrenwith birthdefects, the
added risk was quite small (1.4 percent),and thatthe small risk appliedonly to
the passingon of theirown birthdefect.The findingshave obvious implications
for moreinformedgenetic counselingandsocial policy,not to mentionwomen's
decisions aboutchild bearing.None of these statisticalfacts is even imaginable
without the personal legibility-two generationslong-that makes possible
this correlationbetween the birthdefects of mothersand their children.
The way in which massive projectsof legibility are often driven by a laud-
able concern for public welfare is manifest in the recent debate in the United
States abouta "healthidentificationnumber."Originallyseen as a means to en-
sure thatemployees could retainmedical insuranceif they changedemployers,
the proponentsof "portability"suggested an electroniccode for all patients.8
In the words of the Chairmanof the National Committeeon Vital and Health
Statistics, this code would be "a way to identify people uniquely."86Existing
procedures, they reasoned, were inadequate. Names were not unique; they
changed and were subjectto various spellings; drivers'license numberswere
not universalnor unique except within a single state;the social securitynum-
ber,thoughunique,was not universal.Furthermore,the existing system of med-
ical recordkeeping had all the charmand confusionof vernacularnamingprac-
tices. The varying modes of identificationand softwareprogramsof different
health-managementorganizations,hospitals, clinics, and employers ensureda
mutuallyunintelligibledialogue of the deaf.
Reaching for a utopian solution, planners suggested a comprehensive and
unique numberfor each patient,consisting of date of birth,latitudeand longi-
tude of hometown, and additionaldigits unique to the individual.Others sug-
gested bio-medicalmarkerssuch as thumbprints,electronicscans of the retina,
or DNA profiles. The advantagesof this vast administrativesimplificationare
obvious; all patient records will be trackedas patients change doctors or ad-
dresses (or names!); billing would be streamlined,patients could get their
recordsexpeditiously,and last, but not least, the system would create the kind
of nationaldata-baseof which epidemiologistshave long dreamed.Forthe Cen-
ter for Disease Control,it promisedcomprehensiveinformationon illnesses (as
opposedto the Centerfor Disease Control'ssystem of reportinghospitals),and,
for the individualpractitioner,it promisedthe possibility of matchinga com-
parativelyrareindividualcase with otherslike it nationwideandlearningwhich
treatmentsworkedbest.
The oppositionto a unique and comprehensivehealthidentificationnumber

came from those who were in no doubt about its efficacy as a projectof legi-
bility. It was, in their view, all too legible, especially for those who wanted to
put it to other uses. Sensitive health informationcould be conveyed to em-
ployers (e.g., HIV status),it could be linkedto financialdataandused for black-
mail; it might be used by the police to trackdown suspects or witnesses (thus
drivingthem away from medical care). Patients,thinkingthat a medical histo-
ry of depression, abortion,or sexually-transmitteddisease might end up in a
databaseavailable to their employers or creditors,would be reluctantto con-
fide in their doctorsin the first place.87 Once a comprehensiveprojectof legi-
bility is in place, it representsa vastly expandedcapacityfor discriminatingin-
terventionby whoevercommandsand surveys the synoptic heights.
V. CONCLUSION: THE MODERNIZATION OF IDENTIFICATION
The accurate identification of individuals, let alone actually locating their

whereaboutsis, historically speaking, a very recent phenomenon.Lacking a
comprehensiveand standardizedpopulationregistry,the best that most early-
modern Europeanstates could hope for was a tolerably accuratecensus and
cadastralsurvey to guide levies of grain,draftanimals,and soldiers.The spec-
ification of individualidentitieswas typically confined to the local level, where
the state was hostage to the collaboratorsit could find. Even where permanent
patronymswere alreadyestablished,the vagaries of theirrecording,standard-
ization, duplications,variantspellings, not to mention populationmovement,
made accurateextra-localidentificationof a residenta tenuous affair.
One can sketch, roughly, something of a continuumof identificationprac-
tices, rangedaccordingto how legible, exhaustive,andunambiguousthey were.
At one end would be, say, the Inuit before the disks and before "ProjectSur-
name":a populationtotally legible to local insidersand almosttotally illegible,
synoptically,to outsiders.The introductionof permanentpatronyms,even with
all the liabilities we have noted, is a substantialstep forward.Standardization
of recordkeeping acrossjurisdictionsand of spellings, as well as declining du-
plication of names, has made the name increasinglydiscriminating.The name
remains,in most cases, the first element in most systems of identification(e.g.,
"name,rank,and serial number"in armyparlance).
The next step is the uniqueidentificationnumber,of which the Social Secu-
rity Numberis the classic Americanexample.Whereit covers every citizen and
is coordinatedwith other data (e.g., address,father's name, mother's maiden
name, date of birth),it can be quite discriminating.Its majordrawbackis that
officials are stymiedwhen a citizen refuses or is unableto give his or her name
and "serialnumber."Many nationshave attemptedto remedythis defect in leg-
ibility by imposing substantialpenalties on citizens who fail to deliver theirin-
ternalpassportor piece of identificationto an authority.It is for this reasonthat
the first thing a gendarmesays to someone he has accosted is, "Vospapiers,
Monsieur."One of the most notorious cases of requiringall subjects to carry

an identity card was the "pass system" of South Africa underapartheid.Here

the pass was used to authorizeand control movement between the cities and
white areason the one handand the 'native locations' on the other.Elsewhere,
as in nineteenth-centuryFrance,the pass system was sometimescombinedwith
a record of employment (including the notation of employers) as in the livret
de famille.
The developmentof photographyin the mid-nineteenthcenturymade possi-
ble the photo-identificationand, with it, the police "mug shot."88The photo-
graphaids formidablyin the progressiveeliminationof possible misidentifica-
tions afforded by several forms of identification-a name, a social security
number,anda signature.Here one thinksof the "WantedPosters"madefamous
by the FederalBureauof Investigation(FBI) in U.S. Post Offices, with a pho-
to (frontview, side views), name, aliases, height and weight, fingerprints,and
the locationlast seen. Formost civilian purposes,however,name,photo-ID,so-
cial securitynumber,and signatureare sufficiently definitive.
The next step, of course, and one devised long before the adventof the mod-
em state, is the indelible markingof the body. This practicetoo amountsto a
documentof identity:an identity markone has no choice but to bear corpore-
ally. Tattooingwas, for example, used in pre-colonialSiam on commonersin
much the same fashion as a cattle-brand-to indicateto whom the commoner
was enserfed. Like the mutilationsused elsewhere to identify criminals,run-
away slaves or serfs-such as notchingor severing the ear or distinctive scar-
ring-they identified less the individualthan a class of people, almost always
in a stigmatizing way. More permanentthan dress, such marks nevertheless
served, like sumptuarylaws, to make statuslegible to any observer.In princi-
ple, permanentmarks,such as tattoos, could be made the basis for unambigu-
ous personal identification.One need only imagine that Canadianauthorities
had thoughtof tattooingthe disk numberon each Inuitfor handyreference.
One decisive advantageof an indelible identificationmarkedon the body is
thatit does not requirethe cooperationof the subject.When physically present,
he reveals his identity whetherhe wishes to or not. The most modernforms of
identification-and thereforethose most favored by administrators-are vir-
tually definitive for personalidentity as in the case of bio-medical markers-
e.g., the fingerprint,8" the iris scan, andthe DNA profile. In the case of the DNA
profile, it is definitive long after death; a bit of tissue from a 2,000 year-old
corpse exhumed from the permafrostyields the same absolutely distinctive
DNA signature.
The disadvantageof all these technologies is that they requirethe physical
presence of the body to be identified. But, the trickto much police work is, of
course, successfully locating a suspect or witness whose identity is already
known. It is not a radical step from fingerprintsand DNA profiles to imagine
electronic bracelets transmittingdistinctive signals to a global-positioning
satellite, allowing the police to know, at any time, the precise location of every

person of interest-just as naturalistsand wildlife ecologists now track the

movements of a particularindividual of a migratoryspecies. Such totalizing
possibilities are close to being realized for certain felons on probationor on
work release underthe United Statesjudicial system.
The capacitythat a society made perfectly legible by meticulouspolicies of
identificationaffords state officials is far beyond what the early modernstate
could achieve-though not beyond what its ministerscould imagine. In fact, a
chief distinctionbetween the early modern state and the modern state is pre-
cisely the hard-wonterrainof synoptic administrativelegibility-of geogra-
phy, people, property,goods, commerce,health, skills-that makes large proj-
ects of mobilization and transformationconceivable.90Nowhere is this more
apparentthanin modernistprojectsof extermination.The efficient deportation
of most of the Jews (some 65,000) of Amsterdamto theirdeathsduringthe Nazi
Occupationwould have been unthinkablein the early nineteenthcentury.The
roundupwas madepossible by a meticulousandcomprehensivepopulationand
business registry-names, addresses,ethnicity/religion-and cartographicex-
actitude.A map producedby the city's Office of Statisticsin May 1941 is titled
"The Distributionof Jews in the Municipality."Each black dot representsten
Jews, makingit clear which blocks, when surrounded,would yield most of the
Jewish population.91
Under more controlledconditions-i.e. the concentrationcamps-schemes
of synopticlegibility could be pursuedruthlessly.The very term"concentration
camp"is, of course, a shorthandreferenceto the involuntaryconfinementand
regimentationof prisonersin a miniaturizedsetting,allowing close surveillance
and near perfect legibility. In Auschwitz, serial numberswere tattooedon the
left arm of all Jews and Gypsies, in the order in which they had arrived:the
handfulof long-termsurvivorsbecame known as "oldnumbers"(i.e., low num-
bers).92An elaborate"sumptuary"color code to markthe sub-sets of prisoners
was introduced.In additionto the well-known Jewish star of David, sewn on
the left breast and the right trouserleg, there were a series of triangles (apex
down) affixed to clothingto makethe taxonomyof prisonerslegible at a glance:
brown for gypsies, green for "criminals,"red for "politicals,"pink for homo-
sexuals, mauve for Jehovah'sWitnesses, blue for 6migr6s,and black for "aso-
cial" elements. Prisonerswere identified at roll call by number,not by name.
Many of the same technologies of concentration,identification,and control
are also the basis for what we could considerhumanitarianinterventions.The
operationalproceduresof the United Nations High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR) are a strikingillustrationof how a comparablestate-likecapacityto
generatelegible social landscapescan also be deployed to providea safe-haven
for victims of terrorand/orfeed famishedcivilians. A "PracticalGuidefor Field
Staff" entitled "Registration"distills the experience of refugee administration
over the past fifty years.93"Fixingthe Population,"a key term in the manual,
refers to enumerating,concentrating,and identifying the people "of concern"

to the UNHCR. It requires, though without the barbed wire and electrified
fences, a secureperimeterwith a single, easily controlledentranceand exit. As
refugees arrive,they are given "fixing tokens";then, if the situationpermits,
wristbandsand temporaryidentificationcards, all of which are serially num-
beredto facilitatea roughcensus. Both the wrist-bandsandthe temporaryiden-
tificationcardshave numbersfrom one, to twenty-fouror thirty,each of which
can be punchedlike a railway ticket to indicate the receipt of certain supplies
and rations,dependingon the code established.One purposeof the wristbands
and identitycardsis to preventdoubleregistrationandfraud;anotheris to iden-
tify particularlyvulnerablegroups (e.g., women nursinginfants, aged and in-
firm) for special attention.Togetherwith orderly,barracks-style,shelter con-
struction,enumeratedalso by "section/block/individualshelter,"the identity
cards permita more-or-lesscomplete census of individualsby location in the
camp. This too facilitates locating a particularindividualwho, say, needs spe-
cial medicine or rations,has received a letter,or who has special skills of val-
ue to the camp's operation.
Recent technologicaladvances,however,have made camp organizationeas-
ier and more efficient. The use of computer-generatedbar codes on the wrist-
bands and identity cards, read by laser guns, allow camp officials to monitor
the refugees andthe distributionof rationsmoreefficiently.94In mid-1999, vol-
unteersfrom MicrosoftCorporationwere being deployed to the refugee camps
borderingKosovo to establish a standardized,digitized, photo-IDto be issued
to all refugees. The aim was to producea single, instantlyaccessible, database,
which, among other things, would allow individuals to locate relatives and
friends lost in the scrambleto leave.
Despite the radicallydifferentpurposesof concentrationcamps and refugee
camps, despite the fact that the formerroutinelyemploys violence to achieve
its ends, the discriminatingadministrationof large numbers of strangersre-
quires practices of legibility that bear a family resemblance to one another.
Thus, unless one wishes to make an ethical-philosophicalcase that no state
ought to have such panopticpowers-and herebycommit oneself to foregoing
both its advantages(e.g., the Centerfor Disease Control)as well as its menace
(like fine-combedethnic cleansing)-one is reducedto feeding Leviathanand
hoping, perhapsthroughdemocraticinstitutions,to tame it.
NOTES
ActII, Scene1. London:FaberandFaber,1981.

1. BrianFriel,Translations,
2. Strictlyspeaking,governmental roaddesignationsystemsvaryby level of juris-
diction.Thusone has,movingstep-wisefromlocalto supra-local, townroads,county
roads,stateroads,andnationalroads.At thislastleveltheInterstate system,builtwith
militaryneedsin mind,is logicallycalibrated witheast-westhighwaysdesignatedby
Routes40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90) growinglargeras onemovesnorth,and
'tens'(Interstate
north-southhighways designatedalso by tens (InterstateRoutes 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95)
thegreaterthelike-
growingas onemoveseast.Theolderandsmallerthejurisdiction,

lihood thatits roadand streetsystem will have 'folk' characteristicsthatwill be difficult

for a strangerto fathom.
3. Where a place has been named before the occurrenceof events that will forever
markit, the unmarkedassociationis neverthelessindelible: Katynforest, Guenica,Sel-
ma, Pearl Harbor,Auschwitz, Place de la Bastille, Hastings, Hiroshima,Bandung.For
a mobile or nomadicpeople, the place names thattracetheirtrajectorythroughthe land-
scape often represent,collectively, like a pilgrimageroute,theirhistory,theirmyths, and
their moral orientations.See Keith Basso, WisdomSits in Places: Landscapeand Lan-
guage among the WesternApache (Albuquerque,N.Mex: University of New Mexico
Press, 1996).
4. "Towns in WashingtonBringing Back Poetry in Street Names." The New York
Times,8 June 1997, p. 40.
5. Ibid.
6. In much of pre-modernEurope,it was common for powerful lenders, aristocratic
or secular,to insist on the use of a different,andlargerbushel,for the repaymentof loans
of grainthanthe bushel used for advancingit. Wheredomainalpower was stronger,the
disparitywas correspondinglygreater.See Witold Kula, Measures and Men, transl.by
R. Szreter(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986).
7. For a far more elaboratediscussion of the range of namingpractices,see Richard
D. Alford,Naming and Identity:A Cross-CulturalStudyof Personal Naming Practices
(New Haven: HRAF Press, 1987).
8. Since this would not be a permanentpatronym,if John's son was namedRichard,
then, that son would be called "Richard-John's-son" thus droppingthe grandfather's
name "William"altogether.
9. WilfredThesiger,TheMarshArabs (Harmondsworth:PenguinBooks, 1967), pp.
198-99.
10. We want to thank Lincoln Moses for helping us figure out the mathematicsof
identificationin these hypotheticalexamples.
11. See the excellent account in Ian Hacking, The Tamingof Chance (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress, 1990).
12. China,by contrast,had a centralizedsurnamescheme as early as the Qin dynasty
[fourthcenturyB.C.E.], which triedto registerthe entirepopulationof the kingdom,but
it is not clear how universallyit was applied.This initiativemay well have been the ori-
gin of the term "laobaixing"meaning, literally, the 'old one hundredsurnames,'and
which, in modernChina,has come to mean 'the common people.' Before this time, the
fabled Chinese patrilineagewas absentamong commoners.
13. The role of surnamesas an official statefunctionis also revealed in female nam-
ing practices. This is especially the case when one examines the traditionof married
women taking their husband'slast name. Strangelyenough, "no hunting,gathering,or
fishing society, no society with nuclearfamily organization;and only one society with-
out patrilocalresidencerequires"women to change their names at marriage.R. Alford,
Naming and Identity... ,op. cit., p. 88. Indeed,the only socioculturalvariablethatcor-
relates with female name changes at marriageis the technological complexity of a so-
ciety. In theAnglo-Americantradition,women typicallytook the last names of theirhus-
bands. "as women did not pursue an occupation outside the home and inheritance
typically passed throughsons or othermale heirs, women took upon marriagetheirhus-
band's surnameas their own. It was the name thatbest describedand identifiedwomen
to local officials."See RalphSlovenko, "Overview:Names andthe Law."Names, 32, 2
(June 1984):107-13, 109 (emphasisadded).
14. Recalling the biblical: "Andx begat y who begat z."
15. JamesPennethorneHughes,How YouGot YourName: The Originand Meaning

of Surnames(London:Phoenix House, 1959) p. 20. It is instructiveto note that social

norms of this kind continueto exist, especially with respectto namelessness.As Helen
Lyndwrites, "Thewood in Throughthe LookingGlass where no creaturebears a name
is a place of terror"(qtd. in Harold.R. Isaacs, "Basic GroupIdentity:The Idols of the
Tribe,"in, Ethnicity:Theoryand Experience,NathanGlazer and Daniel P. Moynihan,
eds., Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1975, 29-52, p. 51). Moreover,as Isaacs
points out, "Thesanctionof namelessnessimpostedon bastardyin our cultureis one of
the most fearful that a group can impose. Namelessness of any kind, indeed, is almost
beyond bearing 'nameless fear' is worse thanany otherkind of fear.Names, like social
norms, provide a certain minimum security,bearings that every individual must feel
aroundhim or else be lost" (ibid.).
16. See C. M. Matthews, English Surnames (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1966), pp. 43-44; Beverly S. Seng, "LikeFather,Like child: The Rights of Parentsin
their Children'sSurnames."VirginiaLaw Review 70 (1984):1303, 1307-8, 1324-27,
see supranote 24
17. RichardMcKinley, A History of British Surnames(London: Longman Group,
1990), pp. 29-30.
18. R. McKinley,A History of British Surnames,p. 30.
19. George FraserBlack, The Surnamesof Scotland (New York:New York Public
Library,1946), p. xliv.
20. R. McKinley,A History of British Surnames,p. 30.
21. C. M. Matthews,English Surnames,pp. 43-44.
22. William Camden,RemainsConcerningBritain, ed. R. D. Dunn, originallypub-
lished in 1605 (Toronto:Universityof TorontoPress, 1984), p. 122.
23. Thus, while Ataturk obliged the population of Turkey to take permanent
patronymsbetween 1934 and 1936, they were little used in daily society andhence, the
telephonebook entries began, until the 1950s, with the first, or given, name.
24. Monique Bourin, "Francedu Midi et France du nord: Deux systemes anthro-
ponymiques."L'Anthroponomie:Documentsde l'histoire sociale des mondesmediter-
raniennsmedievaux(Actes du colloque internationalorganisepar 1'Ecolefrancaise de
Rome, 6-8 October 1994 (Ecole francaisede Rome, Palais Farnese, 1996), pp. 179-
202.
25. FernandBraudel,TheMediterraneanand the MediterraneanWorldin theAge of
Philip II, Vol. I, transl.by Sian Reynolds (New York:Harperand Row, 1966), p. 38.
26. It appears(thoughthe timing and comprehensivenessare in dispute),thatby the
fourthcenturyB.C.E., the Qin dynastyhad been imposing surnameson much of its pop-
ulation for the purposesof taxes, forced labor,and conscription.The imposition of sur-
names was, of course, also a culturalprojectto superimposethe patrilineageon com-
monersandgive the new, male family headslegal jurisdictionover theirwives, children,
andjuniors. PatriciaEbery,"TheChinese Family andthe Spreadof ConfucianValues,"
in The East Asian Region: ConfucianHeritage and its ModernAdaptation,ed. Gilbert
Rozman (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1991), pp. 45-83.
27. For example, permanentsurnamesare mostly absentin Indonesiaand Burma.
28. Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 (Cam-
bridge:Blackwell, 1990), pp. 25-30.
29. See Kaplanand Bernays, TheLanguage of Names, p. 57.
30. Dietz Bering, The Stigma of Names: Antisemitismin GermanDaily Life, 1812-
1933, transl.by Neville Plaice (Ann Arbor:Universityof MichiganPress, 1991), p. 29.
31. Ibid., p. 15.
32. Ibid., p. 51.
33. In the case of the United States, Native Americannames persist here and there,

particularlyin the names of rivers-the great arteriesof early colonial trade.Interest-

ingly enough, it seems that geographicalfeaturesthat were not fixed points but rather
whole regions or great stretchesof river had, perhapsbecause of the continuityof the
native name, a betterchance of retainingtheirindigenous name.
34. FrankTerry,Superintendentof the U.S. BoardingSchool for CrowIndians,Mon-
tana,"Namingthe Indians."AmericanMonthlyReview of Reviews 3 (1897), pp. 301-2.
35. EdwardS. Rogers andMaryBlack Rogers, "Methodfor ReconstructingPatterns
of Change:SurnameAdoptionby the WeagamowOjibwa, 1870-1950." Ethnohistory,
25, 4 (Fall 1978), p. 336.
36. Nor, of course, shouldwe overlookthe advantagesof illegibility for subjectswho
might have had good reasonsfor remainingelusive. Colonial subjectshave some of the
same reasons as the underworldfor multiple aliases.
37. Thomas Morgan,Commissionerof IndianAffairs at the Dept. of the Interiorin
1890, relatedthe story of a boy deliveredto a governmentschool by an Apache police-
man. On being asked by the white school teacher what his name was, the policeman
replied, "Des-to-dah,"which, henceforthbecame his name and which, in fact, meant"I
don't know"in thatApache dialect. (Qtd.in FrankTerry,Superintendentof U.S. Board-
ing Schools for Crow Indians,Montana,"Namingthe Indians."ElectronicText Center,
University of Virginia Library,p. 304, see http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-
new2.)
38. EdwardS. Rogers andMaryBlack Rogers, "Methodfor ReconstructingPatterns
of Change ... ," op. cit., p. 343. The name recordedin one instanceas "ChalieKanate"
was variouslyrenderedas "JohnnieKenneth,""Cainet,""Kennet,"and "Kunat."
39. Daniel F. Littlefield,Jr.and Lonnie E. Underhill."Renamingthe AmericanIndi-
an: 1890-1913." AmericanStudies, (1971), 12, 2:33-45, p. 34.
40. Henry E. Fritz, The Movementfor Indian Assimilation, 1860-1890 (Philadel-
phia: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1963), p. 19.
41. Ibid., pp. 198-221.
42. Daniel F. Littlefield,Jr.and Lonnie E. Underhill."Renamingthe AmericanIndi-
an, 1890-1913," op. cit.
43. The impulse came because of the OrganicAct for the Territoryof Oklahomain
which Indianlands became partof the Territory.Land was allottedindividually,for the
most part, to Native Americans (among them Fox, Shawnees, Sac, Potawotomi,
Cheyenne-Arapaho,Tonkawa,Pawnees, Kiowa-Comanche)with the 'left-over' land
going to white settlers. See Daniel E Littlefield, Jr.and Lonnie E. Underhill, "Renam-
ing the AmericanIndian:1890-1913," op. cit.
44. David WallaceAdams, "TheFederalIndianBoardingSchool: A Study of Envi-
ronmentand Response, 1879-1918," Ph.D. thesis, IndianaUniversity School of Edu-
cation, (Ann Arbor:UniversityMicrofilms, 1975), p. 44.
45. Ibid.
46. FrankTerry,"Namingthe Indians,"op. cit., p. 306.
47. See Hamlin Garland,Companionson the Trail. (New York:Macmillan, 1931).
48. Letterfrom Hamlim Garlandto PresidentTheodoreRoosevelt, 29 July 1902 or
thereabout,in Selected Letters of Hamlin Garland (Lincoln, Nebr. and London: Uni-
versity of NebraskaPress, 1998), pp. 157-58.
49. Morganwas in favor of retainingIndiannames andtransliteratingthem into En-
glish scriptwhere they were reasonablyshortand pronounceable(to whites). The prac-
tice of renaminghad, of course,begun with those NativeAmericanswho were employed
by Reservationauthorities,because they figuredfirst on payrolls and rationlists. Nam-
ing, as we have seen earlier,spreadas a functionof the intensivenessof contactwith of-
ficials. (FrankTerry,op. cit.)

50. Dr.W. N. Hailmann,GeneralSuperintendentof IndianSchools, "Namingthe In-

dians."AmericanMonthlyReview of Reviews 15 (March1897), p. 302.
51. Hamlin Garlandto the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 3 Nov. 1902, Letter-
Book, 1901-1904, 112, Hamlin Garland Collection,Universityof SouthernCalifornia
Library,Los Angeles.
52. Letterfrom HamlinGarlandto CharlesF. Lummis,26 Nov. 1902, in SelectedLet-
ters of Hamlin Garland,op. cit.
53. Each of these colorful names, of course, were attachedto narrativeswhich, col-
lectively, mappedmuch of the individual,family, and local history of a Native Ameri-
can society.
54. Froma documentof the UnitedForeignMissionarySociety's Boardof Managers,
quotedin David WallaceAdams, "TheFederalIndianBoardingSchool ...," op. cit., p.
14.
55. Daniel F. Littlefield and Lonnie E. Underhill,"Renamingthe AmericanIndian,
1890-1913," op. cit., p. 36.
56. David WallaceAdams, "TheFederalIndianBoardingSchool ... ," op. cit., p. 17.
57. It should be clear that the patternbeing imposed was the normativepatternof
the nuclear, patriarchalfamily, not the great range of practices characteristicof late
nineteenth-centurywhite society.
58. Letterto CharlesF. Lummis,3 Dec. 1902, in SelectedLettersofHamlin Garland,
op. cit. p. 164.
59. Letterto CharlesF. Lummis,29 July 1902, Selected Lettersof Hamlin Garland,
op. cit. p. 164.
60. This belief recalls the reformersof the Meiji Restorationin Japanwho touredEu-
rope examining constitutions,believing that, of they got the constitution"right"an en-
lightened moderngovernmentwould follow.
61. There was, for example, great concern over "summerholidays" during which
time the studentsreturnedto their families and reservations.The boardingschool au-
thoritiesthoughtthatall theircivilizational work was undoneover the summerand that
they had to begin again from scratchin the fall.
62. David Wallace Adams, "The Federal IndianBoarding School ...," op. cit., p.
101.
63. ValerieAlia, Names, Numbersand NorthernPolicy: Inuit,Project Surname,and
the Politics ofldentity (Halifax,Nova Scotia:FernwoodPublishing, 1994). This section
is based almost entirely on Alia's fine study.
64. Letterfrom D. A. J. MacKinnonto the Departmentof the Interiorto protestthe
difficulty of following individualsfrom one partof Pangnirtungdistrict[E-6] to anoth-
er. Cited in V. Alia, Names, Numbers and Northern Policy, op. cit., p. 29. Emphasis
addedto highlightMacKinnon'srecognitionof how much of the identificationproblem
is confined to outsiderswith no local knowledge.
65. V. Alia, Names, Numbersand NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit., p. 32.
66. The same system was tried on the !Kungin SouthAfrica. V. Alia, Names, Num-
bers, and NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit., p. 75.
67. Here it is apposite to recall the social commentaryembeddedin the army slang
"dog tags" in orderto imagine what the Inuit might have thoughtabout wearing disks
aroundtheirnecks.
68. V. Alia, Names, Numbersand NorthernPolicy ..., op. cit., p. 36. Many people
suggestedusing the CanadianSocial Insurancenumberas the standardidentificationfor-
mula as it was used for otherCanadians.
69. The exception thatprovedthe rule was one Qallunaaq(Canadianof Europeande-
scent) who, desiring assimilation,wore his disk to prove he had been 'classed' as Inuit.
70. V. Alia, Names, Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ..., op. cit., p. 56.

71. NorthwestTerritoriesDocument, 1971a: 12, cited in ibid., p. 56. V. Alia (p. 80)
reportsthe following conversationin the course of her research:"A territorialgovern-
ment employee told me disk numberswere neededbecause 'all Inuithad the same name
or so close you couldn't tell the difference.You needed something logical. You had to
have an order.Thereweren't any names.' I repliedthattherewere names and they were
not the same. He insisted thatInuit were 'impossible to identify.'"
72. V. Alia, Names, Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit., p. 63.
73. V. Alia, Names, Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit., p. 69. Elsewherein
the circum-polarregion, the Yuit of Siberia had single names like CanadianInuit but
were given last names in the 1930s, underStalin. In the 1960s the polarInuit were giv-
en last names by the Danes-first by the Ministryof EcclesiasticalAffairs. Therewere
mixed names (e.g. the hunter "ItukusukKristiansen")."People got surnamesfor ad-
ministrativeconvenience."V. Alia, Names Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit.,
p. 75.
74. V. Alia, Names, Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ... ,op. cit., p. 75. Note the re-
markableassumptionthat the absence of an appropriatenaming system, by itself, pre-
vents anythinglike 'family feeling.'
75. ValerieAlia, Names, Numbers,and NorthernPolicy ..., op. cit., p. 82.
76. The process was not, however, completed until 1936. The late OttomanEmpire
itself had moved, duringthe periodknown as the "Tanzimat"towardcodification, sys-
tematization,and more fine-tuned administrativecontrol. See, in this context, Recep
Boztemur,"State-Makingand Nation Building:A Study of the HistoricalRelationship
Between the Capitalist Development and the Establishmentof the Modern Nation
State,"Ph.D., University of Utah, Languagesand Literature,1997, pp. 260-423.
77. For this discussion see: RobertF. Spencer,"TheSocial Contextof ModernTurk-
ish Names."SouthwesternJournal ofAnthropology,17, 3 (Autumn1961), pp. 205-18;
Donald E. Webster,"StateControlof Social Changein RepublicanTurkey."American
Sociological Review, 4, 2 (April 1939), pp. 247-56; BernardLewis, TheEmergenceof
Modern Turkey(London: Oxford University Press,1961), pp. 263-83; A. L. Macfie,
Ataturk(New York:Longmans, 1994), pp. 136 et seq., VanikD. Volkan and Norman
Itzkowitz, TheImmortalAtaturk:A Psychobiography(Chicago:University of Chicago
Press, 1984).
78. Two brothersmight, in the namingexercise, take differentpatronyms,thereby,in
effect beginning two separatepatrilineagesso far as names were concerned.
79. Ts'ui-p'ing Ho, "Exchange, Person, and Hierarchy:Rethinking the Kachin,"
Ph.D. Thesis, Anthropology,University of Virginia, 1997, p. 23. Thanks to Magnus
Fiskesjo for bringingthis thesis to our attention.
80. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities:Reflections of the Origin and
Spreadof Nationalism (London:Verso, 1983), p. 169.
81. Lois Law Library,10D-49.0192. "Namingof Child When ParentsDisagree on
the Selection of the Name."JeremyMathias,unpublishedlecture, n.d.
82. One can imaginethe overwhelmingimpactof this processin colonial possessions
wherethe languageof documents,law, andadministrationwere suddenlyswitchedfrom
the local vernacularto the metropolitanlanguage.
83. ToreFrangsmyr,J. L. Heilbron,andRobin E. Rider,TheQuantifyingSpiritof the
18th Century(Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1990), p. 13.
84. "New Data on Babies of Women with Birth Defects." The New YorkTimes, 18
Apr. 1999, p. A18.
85. Therewould also be electroniccodes for employers,healthproviders,physicians,
and hospitals. "HealthIdentifierfor All AmericansRuns into Hurdles."TheNew York
Times, 19 July 1998, pp. 1, 11.
86. Ibid., p. 1.

87. The Social Security system is now linked to many records,and practicalaccess
to credithistories,medical records,wages, and employmentrecordsis within the grasp
of most talentedcomputerhackers.In additionthere are a great numberof counterfeit
cards.Opponentsof the healthidentificationnumberfearthatthe same abusesandunau-
thorizedaccess to confidentialinformationwill quickly overtakea healthidentification
number.For the United States, it is the closest thing to a nationalidentificationnumber
(137 million numbersissues since 1936).
88. And, later,a series of techniquesby which witnesses could attemptto build a like-
ness from variouselements of a face with the help of trainedspecialists.
89. The fingerprintas a form of identificationwas developed around1880 and first
appliedin Bengal to combatpension fraud.Like so manyotheradvancesin police-work,
it was triedfirst in the colonies and then transplantedback to Britain.Most of the uses
of fingerprintsinvolve tryingto matchthe fingerprintsof a suspect in custody with fin-
gerprintscollected at the crime scene. The fingerprintwas never universal(though at-
tempts were made in the 1920s in the United States to make it universal),and, despite
the patinaof pure science aboutit, it requiresspecialists with long experienceto match
fingerprintsdefinitively.Lectureby Simon Cole, Dept. of Anthropology,StanfordUni-
versity,November 1998.
90. For an elaborateargumentalong these lines, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a
State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New
Haven:Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 87-102.
91. Ibid.,pp. 78-79. It is also truethatthis map could equally have been used to feed
the Jews or to evacuatethem secretlyto the countryside.The map was only information;
it was the Nazis and their collaboratorswho suppliedthe deadly purpose.
92. Anton Gill, The Journey Back from Hell: Conversations with Concentration
CampSurvivors,(London:GraftonPublishers,1988), pp. 26-32. Each camp designat-
ed prisonersby numberbut it appearsthatonly at Auschwitz was the numbertattooed
on the skin of gypsies andJews. The designation"Z"(for "ziegeuner")appearedbefore
the numberin the case of gypsies. Some thoughtwas given to brandingprisoners'names
on their forehead.
93. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Registration: A Practical
Guidefor Field Staff (Geneva, May 1994).
94. Letterfrom Bela Hovy, Statistician,Division of OperationalSupport,United Na-
tions High Commissionerfor Refugees, 10 July 1998.


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Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

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We namea thingand-bang!-it leapsintoexistence.Eachnamea perfectequation

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ing the towns of DurhamandGuilfordin the stateof Connecticut(USA). Those

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nacular landscape is a nearly insurmountableobstacle to effective rule. Re-

II. STATE-NAMING AS STATE-MAKING:

Like place-names,permanentsurnameshelp to chartthe humantopographyof

The Problem of Confusion

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my identity/Bathe me in self-discovered knowledge/Identifymy ancestorswho have

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In the small vernacularcommunity,of course, this cornucopiaof names oc-

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often at cross-purposes.It is for such reasonsthatlocally-keptcensus rolls have

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say, HenryWilliamson,and his son as, say, EdwardWilliamson,and so on, we

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tax-payers,land records,averageincome, income distributions,mortalityrates

PermanentPatronymsand the State: Origins

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sonal surnames.And the geography of this crystallizationtraced,almost per-

England, Scotland,and Wales:Private Property,

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Howfarhis grantsweregrantsof property wasperhapsnotclear.

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ing practices.Eachnameis appropriateto a particularsphereof social relations,

Citizenship, Identity, and State Administration

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of democraticcitizenship and modernist social engineering requiredentirely

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as Jews."31The liberality of 1812 edict gave way to a new law passed on 22

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once resistantand uncharted.Here, confrontinga populationwith few, if any,

TheRenamingof Native Americans

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ployees and a handfulof chiefs. They were dependenton "native-trackers" for

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grees of contact and assimilation, and the huge variety of administrative

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quently,shorteningas well. "BlackBull" might be shortenedto "Blackbill"or

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requirednew names which "tendstronglytowardthe breakingup of the Indi-

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achieved a commensurateincrease in micro-controlof the environment.Here

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To the problemof varianttransliterationsmust be addedthat of multiplejuris-

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creationof legal persons.The Canadianwelfare state,thoughin its infancy,was

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Just as industrializednations are extendinglong-standingprojectsof legibility

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Fixing Names, Fixing Identities

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Meanwhile,the olderprocess of state-makingthroughnamingcontinues,of-

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state namingsystems typically become hegemonicfor severalreasons, all hav-

IV. VERNACULAROPTICS, STATE OPTICS

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