5. The Social Life of the State’s Fantasy

Surname adoption stories based on a selected number of interviews reveal a variety of “surnaming” experiences ranging from bestowal and choice, to assignation in absentia by officials, and even a purchase. The narratives show us the manner in which the law entered into families’ lives, and the amount of leverage family members perceived having at the time. Each narrative provides an account of the social ties through which a surname became associated with a family, opening a window onto the political economy in which names and words circulated. Since they are responses to the question, “How did you get your surname?” narratives about surname adoption describe what Asif Agha calls “baptismal events,” performative speech events whose discursive regularity, or pairing, then circulates in “speech chain networks” to merge the bearer and name, to give social life to the law.