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In a world where even the act of speaking is infused with power, names,

whether protective or emboldening, proverbial or predictive, exalted

or even seemingly indelicate, are of the highest traditional

significance. In the Western world, very few socio-cultural factors

influence the dynamics of name-giving, hence the shrugged-off, almost

rhetorical question, “What’s in a name?”

They are entirely interchangeable and unrevealing. But in African

culture, many factors are at work in the naming process and a seemingly

simple name can hold someone’s entire biography. An African name is

much more than a simple, functional tag to identify someone, it is a

symbol, an emblem. A name can shape someone’s character, mold their

social identity, and even influence their destiny.

The meaning attached to a name will determine much about the present

and the future of a child. One can often infer someone’s socio-cultural

aspects from their name: their ethnicity, their gender, but also their

day or date of birth, their family’s occupation, their social and

political class, the religion and deities they follow, the hopes and

dreams of their parents, etc. It can also express the values, ethics,

and beliefs of the culture they are born into

Traditional African names often have unique stories behind them.

Whichever ethnic group you look at, these local names reveal a wealth

of information about the bearer. Among several ethnic groups, picking

out names can be influenced by positive or negative circumstances the

family finds themselves in around the time a child is born. Often, such names are complete sentences.

Such names include among others; Balibaseka (they were mocking,

Luganda), Kokundeka (better leave me, Runyankole), Ensinikweri (that’s

how the world is, Runyankole) and the list continues

Conversely, our African identity has been wiped out to a deep extent

owing to the rejection of our naming cultures and traditions. What we

have now is a show of British imperialism and brainwashing. It seems

that giving your child African names without a first Western name is

uncool. This is terrible!

Hardly do you see non-Africans giving their children African names.

It is almost unheard of. Yet, Africans are unsatisfied with their

names. We collect names from everywhere, mainly from our colonizers.

British colonies in Africa use British names, and French colonies use

French names. Keep in mind Africa is not the only continent that was

colonized. Even the now mighty China was colonized but has since

independence emancipated herself from the colonizers' cultures

As Africans, we need to love ourselves more. We need to stand up and

identify with our culture by starting with the little things. Our

African names matter and identify us with our land and culture. There

was no King of England called Mwangi. You can't hear people in Russia

being called Nafula or Ife. It is time for us to be content to call

our children African names without a Western name to restore our

Africanness. However, this is not to mean we should be anti-Western.

This is purely a matter of a lost culture, pride, and identity; and

how that affects our present and future.

The world is moving towards a more global and less national and

continental phase. We have to embrace globalization and all its

goodies. We can't abandon scientific knowledge and technology. That

would be not very smart! But as we embrace these global benefits, we

should be able to own up to who we are. 

When we travel abroad, we should proudly say we are Adofo, Nana, Chidi,

Nagaddya or Ombati. People should stop and ask where we are from. They

should not hear our names and on seeing us think we are phonies who

can't accept out blackness and "Africanness".

It isn’t surprising however that all of my friends who come to know

about my recently adopted name have asked the question; why, why change

the name? My submission is that I’ve not changed any name because I

previously didn’t have one, what I did was Reclaiming My Identity,

which my great grandfathers had long-lost on the plantations during

the horrible days of slavery.

Therefore, what I carried all along (and what most Africans still

carry) was an identification tag (slave name) which was forcefully

adopted by our forefathers, after being stripped off their Africanness

(their African names) by their slave masters. Finally, I’ll quote just

a few wise words by the greatest of our kind;

1) “They laughed at your clothes; and made you change your clothes,

they laughed at your names; and made you change your name; but more

importantly they laughed at your God; and made you change your God.”

– John Henrik Clarke

2) “You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself,

that values itself.” – Wangari Maathai

3) “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” – Frederick Douglass

4) “To control a people, you must first control what they think about

themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when

your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history,

he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.” – John Henrik

Clarke

5) "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if

they knew they were slaves.” – Harriet Tubman

Whereas the first three quotes clearly explain the reason why I

personally chose to reclaim my identity by adopting an African name,

the last two also explain why the majority of Africans find pride in

having British, French, Spanish and Portuguese “identification tags”

as names. They must therefore not be blamed In his book; Know Thyself, The Honorable Dr. Na’im Akbar writes; “It is not accidental that the changing of the names of the Africans who were made into slaves was an initial step in the miseducation process.

Being given the names of their masters or from the cultural traditions

of their masters actually identified them in very basic ways as the

property of their masters. People can only belong to themselves if

their identity is an outgrowth of their history, their culture, their

reality and their survival needs.”

To expound on the matter, Credo Mutwa, in his book; Africa’s Hidden

History, has this to say; “They had deliberately so brain washed our people, that Africans had lost all self-knowledge, self-love, self-respect, self-pride and self-dependency." If you rob a people of all these things you turn them into a race of robots, forever dependent

upon you. And even if you stood up and walked away from these people,

and said to them that you were giving them back their freedom, they

would stand up and follow you wherever you are going for their minds

we're still your slaves even though their bodies were now free of your

chains. 

"It is therefore pertinent to note that slavery wasn’t all

about physical torture, but rather capturing the African mind!"

Note; This document is purely a reflection of my personal thoughts and

opinion, guided by my consciousness, developed over years of research.

I’ve got no moral authority whatsoever to judge or criticize anyone

by their opinions. Nonetheless, I wholly concur with Jesse Jackson,

that; “You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be

responsible for getting up!”