In the name of the (God) father: The unnameable name

The article provides an answer to fundamental questions of what qualifies a name, specifically the (god) father’s name, as something unnameable comparable to the God’s name? What word is commonly used by the Bamilekes from the Grassfields region of Cameroon to name a name that cannot be named in public? What is substituted for when a name is unavailable? Why are these people engaged in a politics of sur-naming, despite the fact the fact they usually bear many names? Is the prevailing sur-naming practice justified by the lacking of proper name as Derrida argues? The text argues that in Bamileke societies where a respectable kinship system (in opposition to a joking kinship) prevails, an adult is rarely referred to by his/her name but rather by his/her ndap (eulogy name) that ends up obliterating the person’s proper name to the point of turning it into a dead name.