Investigating the Onomastic Need to Rename Gender-derogatory Toponyms: A South African Perspective

Abstract

This article explores the onomastic necessity of renaming gender-derogatory toponyms in the South African landscape. It contends that there is a need to interrogate the reasons behind gender-derogatory names and how society relates to these names. Four theories: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Critical Toponymic, Socio-onomastic and Feminism theories guided, shaped and informed the authors’ argument. Qualitative in nature, the article employed content analysis for data collection and analysis purposes. A database of over twenty-five (25) toponyms that are considered gender-derogatory was purposively collected and analysed. These toponyms were further grouped into different categories for easy presentation and analysis. It was found that there are gender-derogatory toponyms among South African geographical features, many of which were named using African languages. Furthermore, there is an existing intersectionality between gender-derogatory toponyms with toxic masculinity and feminism. For these reasons, the article postulated that there should be synergy, resonance and constructive alignment among toponyms, renaming, transformation agenda and identity construction. The article further recommends renaming gender-derogatory toponyms and raising awareness about the renaming process and its approach. It emphasises that renaming should be guided by semantics and linguistic ideology rather than race, language, or political power and its influence. Keywords: Toponyms, gender-derogatory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminism, Toxic Masculinity.