Sign Names

Alright, so I’ve been a bit off the radar the past couple weeks so I’ve decided I’ll discuss something fun for the one or two of you who might actually read this.    There is a single moment for hearing people that you know you have been accepted into Deaf World. I’ve heard it described as an initiation; however, I’ve always described it as Deaf puberty.  This pivotal moment in any ASL student’s life is when he or she gets a sign name!  Before a person receives a sign name their name is fingerspelled like N-I-C-K. 

There are two types of sign names: arbitrary and descriptive.  Arbitrary sign names use the first letter of the name and place it near the temple for males and near the chin for females.  Generally the top half of the head is for male names and the bottom half is for female names.  I’ve heard two reasons for this but we’ll stick with the less offensive one:  in the 1800’s men wore top hats on their head and women wore bonnets tied under their chin.  This means my sign name would be my hand shaped in the letter N (for Nick) and placed near my temple.  Obviously there must be a better way to give a sign name than this or there would be so many repetitive sign names.

The descriptive sign names are much more Deaf culture centered.  They are unique to each individual person, almost like a nick-name in the hearing world. Let me start with there are no laws or rules sign names must follow; however, here are a few quick guidelines for descriptive sign names (rules 1 and 3 cross over into arbitrary sign names as well):

1.       A Deaf person typically gives a sign name.

2.       A sign name incorporates a unique characteristic (usually visual characteristic)

3.       It also typically incorporates the first letter of the person’s name

4.       A person’s sign name can change from social group to social group

5.       Sign names can change over time

Another important aspect of Deaf culture that is related to sign names is Deaf culture is blunt …. Really blunt.   Since Deaf people are visual people, they make a lot of references to visual characteristics.  This means sign names can sometimes come off as a little harsh in our culture, and maybe even make some hearing people uncomfortable.  Here are some examples of sign names:

If there is a girl names Heather who has a large nose, her sign names might be tracing an outline of a large nose with the letter H.    If Heather had a large scar on her face her sign name would probably be the letter H tracing where her scar is.   Now in hearing culture we are taught not to stare at a scar on someone’s face or a comically large nose but Deaf people identify others by these visual characteristics.

OK, here are two real life examples:  My instructor is bald and his name is Kevin.  His sign name growing up was a K near his temple.  A couple years back he was given the sign name of K tracing the bald part of his head.  Now I don’t know about you but I would never would up to my economics professor and refer to him as Dr. Baldy but in Deaf World that’s ok.  My sign name is an N to my chin because I’m gay and the sign for gay is a G to the chin.  Kevin was referring to me (in voice) to his daughter as “Gay Nick” and she told him he could NOT call me that!  In hearing culture that would definitely not be appropriate but within Deaf culture it is not only accepted but it recognized as a very useful tool.  My sign name was given to me to differentiate me from her other friend Nick, who was straight.   

I typed a little more than I intended to with this topic so I’ll stop here and leave you with a Deaf culture related fact: The huddle formation was developed by the football team at Gallaudet University (a Deaf university in D.C.) to prevent the team from reading their signs while the quarterback was calling out the plays.