Othering by naming. The function of unconventional names in German colonial literature

German colonial literature celebrates the colonizers' domination of a foreign people, while justifying the domination by the colonizers' mission to civilize the allegedly inferior Others. The underlying colonial ideology is overtly expressed by the storyline in general and by stereotyped and mostly negative representations of the Others. In this article I will argue that the authors of German colonial novels also used the opposition between conventional and unconventional names in order to emphasize the alleged otherness and inferior status of their African characters. The analysis will include 25 novels set in German East Africa and published between 1891 and 1955.