necronym

plural necronyms

1. The name of a person who has died.

   Some cultures have a taboo against uttering necronyms.

   1 more example

   […] necronym taboo (i.e., a prohibition on saying the names of people who have passed away) […]

   2007, Claire Bowern, Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide, Springer, →ISBN, page 227

2. A substitute name used to refer to a person who has died (instead of the name the person had in life).

   Each list ends with a necronym: John for Timothy, […]

   2003, The Genealogist, volumes 17-18, page 212

   2 more examples

   ln some cultures the dead are given a new proper name, known as a "necronym," to avoid breaking the taboo. Necronyms sound to me a great deal like the euphemisms we use, such as "passed on" or "passed away," to say that someone died ...

   1998, Louise Harmon, Fragments on the Deathwatch, MA: Beacon Press

   Often a recently deceased person is referred to circumlocutory by a teknonym or necronym according to their relationship with some living [person].

   1999, David McKnight, People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of Classification Among the Lardil of Mornington Island, Oxford University Press, USA

3. A name or name element which indicates that someone the person was closely related to is dead.

   An individual takes a necronym, or death-name, when some of his primary relatives die, namely a parent, a sibling, ...

   1978, Victor T. King, Essays on Borneo societies

   1 more example

   […] a Penan may be designated by three sorts of terms: a personal name, a teknonym ('father of so-and-so', 'mother of so-and-so') and, finally, what one feels like calling a necronym, which expresses the kinship relation of a deceased relative to the subject: 'father dead', 'niece dead', etc. The western Penan have no less that twenty-six distinct necronyms, corresponding to the degree of kinship, relative age of the deceased, [etc].

   1966, Claude Lvi-strauss, The Savage Mind, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 191

4. humorousraresometimesdeadname