This article unlocks the complex indexicalities pertaining to names in a multilayered diasporic field, one in which descendants from different ancestral areas of a former homeland (India) have merged loosely into a new community (in South Africa). The focus falls on large-scale innovations in officially registered personal names over a period of 150 years. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis of over 2,300 names shows the influence of social variables like religion, class, and subethnic affiliations via different ancestral languages. These result in different choices in retaining traditional names, modernising them, or adopting Western ones. There is also evidence of asymmetric accommodations as names flow from one subgroup to another, but not vice versa. A novel pattern in Indo-Dravidian studies is presented, that harnesses rhyme (or consonant mutation) and ablaut (or vowel mutation) to generate new names, carrying the indexicalities ‘Indian South African’, but also ‘modern’ and ‘globally oriented’. (Socio-onomastics, name changes, Indian South Africans, Indian languages, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, asymmetric accommodations)*

中文翻译：

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社会语言学模式和名称：印度南非人个人姓名变化的变异研究

本文揭示了与多层散居地中的名称有关的复杂索引性，其中来自前祖国（印度）不同祖先地区的后裔松散地合并到一个新社区（在南非）。重点在于 150 年来正式注册的个人姓名的大规模创新。对超过 2,300 个名字的定性和定量分析显示了宗教、阶级和亚种族等社会变量通过不同的祖先语言产生的影响。这些导致在保留传统名称、对其进行现代化改造或采用西方名称方面有不同的选择。当名称从一个子组流向另一个子组时，也有不对称调节的证据，但反之则不然。提出了印度-德拉威研究的一种新模式，它利用押韵（或辅音突变）和变音（或元音突变）来生成新名称，带有索引性“印度南非”，但也有“现代”和“全球导向”。（社会专名学、名称更改、印度南非人、印度语言、伊斯兰教、印度教、基督教、不对称住宿）*