death-name

plural death-names

1. A name that is given (usually by a priest) to refer to someone who has died so that the living can avoid using the actual name of the dead person.

   Most death-names are not actually names but titles, given to persons on the death of a close relative.

   1995, Omega: An International Journal for the Study of Dying

   3 more examples

   Indeed, those old insurgents, of 1868, are gradually being canonized with crimson death-names, because they neither knew dishonor, no, nor suffered it.

   1906, John Luther Long, The Way of the Gods, page 25

   The priest at that time would give a death-name for the deceased, eventually to be inscribed on a stone monument.

   1968, Richard K. Beardsley, John W. Hall, Robert E. Ward, Village Japan, page 342

   Using death-names instead of usual names is their way to protect the feelings of the bereft (using the name of the dead might arouse sad feelings).

   2015, Alan R. Kemp, Death, Dying and Bereavement in a Changing World