Name signs

[Cathy Shields]

Is it true that someone else who speaks ASL needs to give you a name sign?  What do you do when you don't have an ASL speaker available?  Like when you are learning sign to help a small child.

 

[Cody Hartjes]

hello. i am of hearing and studying ASL and in my experience, a name sign is given, from someone who is Deaf and uses ASL to a Hearing person if the person who is Deaf (and or a group/the community) acknowledges that hearing person. the Deaf tend to associate a name sign to the person with something they know that person frequents, likes doing, has a certain hobby, just something to identify by. 2 types of name signs are: 1) arbitrary- implies the name sign has no specific meaning ex... someone named (called) CJ. a Deaf person could possibly give the arbitrary sign name to that person and fingerspell C-J and move it somewhere around the body.  2) descriptive- implies the name sign is made referring to a person's appearance or characteristics.