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Child Soldier Narratives and Their War Names

ABSTRACT War names are a prominent feature in the child soldier narrative, a genre of literary writing mostly associated with Africa. They have several narratological functions; they act as unique identifiers, signal their statuses as combatants, and so on. Moreover, characters who use war names often reflect upon their significance as inspirational, aspirational, representative of how they want to be perceived by others and even a source of “hidden power” that improves their effectiveness as soldiers. The adoption of a war name is a complex process regulated by informal rules that yield diverse examples. And in some cases contextual information from within a narrative and the historical circumstances on which names are based provide a rich source of characterisation for characters who may otherwise serve limited roles in their respective texts. I examine this unique process to show that these names reveal much about the characters and the brutal conditions in which they operate.