A Socio-onomastic Analysis of Nicknames of Selected Nigerian Premier Football League Clubs

This study examines the sources as well as the social implications of official nicknames of selected indigenous football clubs in Nigeria. The objective is to examine and analyse how these football clubs' nicknames reveal sociolinguistic variables such as tribe, language, religion, profession, etc. The theory adopted for this work is the socio-onomastic theory which studies the social and cultural aspects of names. Data for this work were gathered from the official website of the Nigeria Football Federation and the respective football clubs. Also, data were gathered from social media platforms such as Meta, Instagram, and X accounts of the Nigeria Football Federation and all the football clubs that participate in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) in the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 football seasons. Data validation was carried out through direct conversation with media advisers of these clubs as well as selected fans of these respective clubs. It was discovered that there are seven sources of NPFL clubs' nicknames, which include indigenous name, spontaneous foreign name, state and political slogans, culture-reference, animal and Ethnonym. The paper also established that all the key components of socio-onomastics as instrument for deriving nicknames, which are social identity, cultural significance, social hierarchy, naming practices, language and linguistics, history and change, power dynamics and identity politics as championed by Langendonck (2007) identified in this work. In conclusion, it was observed that nicknaming is a social marketing strategy that football clubs in Nigeria use to connect the club to their teeming fans.