(Important note: all names in this entry are absolutely real)
Nope, this is not the name of a famous artist, a football player or an important politician, it’s just the name of one of my former kindergarten students… Let’s say it again: MUBANGA SHITULUKA… really, can you get more African than that? I have become fascinated with some of these names. It’s not that I thought that living in Ghana I would be surrounded by Johns and Michaels (which I was kind of was since I had one co-worker named John and one named Michael), but I was definitely not prepared to what I encounter. And I am not talking about the very ethnic ones, like say, NKIRRUKA IKPOKI… or SALMA SHAMEKA SAAKA… or even CHINOYELUM CHIDUBEM OKAFOR (who for practical reasons we called chinoye and whose name took me about a month to decipher considering she is four, can’t write and speaks very timidly). I also had one student name RAMANANDA with a last name that he himself couldn’t pronounce… And it’s not only that they are names that I was not used to, is that the way they pronounce remains a mystery to me, how on Earth was I supposed to know that EWURA ESI is pronounced something similar to eraser????
Anyway, as I was saying, I was not referring to these names that are as autochthonous as they can be, which usually have interesting meaning and that can even sound pretty cool. What made me write this entry to my blog were those names that left me with a WHAT?!?!?! Face… I was well warned by my flatmate, who was brave enough to work in a not so wealthy area of NY (let’s say the Bronx), where she had a student named ABCD and another one named FEMALE. But I resisted to believe that it was a common practice until I personally ran into Papa and nana. Being a Spanish speaker makes it even funnier. These names are so common in Ghana that there was not only one pair of siblings called PAPA and NANA but two! I want to think that BRIGHT’s and BLESSED’s parents (yes, they were siblings) wanted to name their children with some very profound words that will set a starting point for a hopeful remarkable future of their offspring, otherwise, why would you name your son DOCTOR or BANK? Or maybe it is just about the virtues that they hope for them to develop as in the case of PATIENCE, TALENT and INNOCENCE? Or is it about what the child means to their parents and so they named him PRECIOUS? Anyone wants take a guess on what were the motives behind BEE or TT? Would you consider naming your child NOW? Can anyone please explain me what were ANYWAYS’ parents thinking?!?!
