Sarah Britten’s post about Afrikaans names reminded me of another bunch of people who are apt to give their offspring some pretty amusing, if not unfortunate names. Black people.
I’m sure this has happened to you before: you walk into the Steers, place your order, wait for 5 minutes and then accept your greasy burger and chips. Because you were “brung up” properly, you glance at the assistant’s name tag so you can thank him, despite the fact that your chips have the texture and taste of toothpicks. And then you find yourself in the awkward position of trying not be openly amazed at the name pinned neatly on his chest. Jester. Heavenly. Joyful. Moment.Of course, these are the fringe examples. Black people are far more likely to be named after one of the 12 Disciples, or a medieval Anglo-Saxon despot, perhaps.
I don’t think it requires a PhD in “Why Black People do the Things They do” for me to guess how this curious phenomenon came about. I imagine early 20th century mine bosses would have had difficulty in shouting, “Hey, Lehlohonolo!” Far easier to say, “Hey, Samson. Crawl into this hole in the ground were you will more likely than not die.” If you think I’m making light of a serious thing, you are correct. It’s an affliction of mine. I can’t seem to take certain things seriously. You know what’s even funnier? My own name. My full legal name is Waldemar Siphosenkosi Hlongwane. How I came to be encumbered with this unwieldy Scandinavian or Teutonic nom de guerre (depending on which Wikipedia page you consult) is something of a mystery to me. It’s not that I mind. It adds to the exoticism, I think.
And it is really amusing to hear the different ways of pronouncing my name people can think up. One particularly memorable one was happened way back in 2007. Our residence in UCT would conduct a fire drill once a semester, and once everyone had stumbled out of bed and assembled in the parking area outside, a quick roll call would be conducted (sounds like I was in the military, doesn’t it). There I would stand in my jammies at three in the morning, waiting for the inevitable “Well-der-mar?” from the sub-warden. Trying to correct him would only add insult to injury, of course. University students can be very unkind when it comes to other people’s funny names.
The correct pronunciation is Vaal-de-mar. I still prefer Sipho, though. And you can be very certain that my own sprogs (which is to say, when I choose to have them) will have deep, meaningful and utterly unpronounceable African names one day, like Nomgqibelo or Nhlanhla.
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51 Responses to “Speaking of names…”
It is a pity that we seem to be perpetuating a a practice of colonial convenience. My two sons are Boitumelo and Teboho and do not have any of these colonial names. Not that there is anything wrong with them.
Thanks very much for raising this matter and lets keep this discussion rolling. Lets help more of our African brothers and sisters out of the master/slave slumber. Wake up, the chains are off!
My uncle emigrated to New Zealand and named one of his Kiwi offspring Gemma (pronounced Jem-ma). When they visited South Africa for the first time the locals kept calling her (hard G) Gem-ma.
One of my best is Prettyboy. A very intelligent, educated man with a great sense of humour, it was a pleasure to deal with him. But asking to speak to Prettyboy was a huge hurdle I had to overcome every time I phoned him. Nhlanhla would have been a lot easier. Me, I don’t have a problem pronouncing Nhl…
I grew up as a white farmboy in rural KZN. We were all given “Zulu names”, which in some cases became the nicknames people were known by everyone, even better than their official names. It’s just osmosis, whether it’s through workers influencing farmers or mine foremen influencing workers.
Great article. Nice writing style. Pleasure to read.
I once saw a black lady interviewed on television whose name was ‘Aquamarine.’ No jokes.
I had similar experiences with roll calls growing up, given that I have a French first and surname. The surname is difficult even for the French to get right, let alone Afrikaaners at school. Whenever there was a period of silence during the roll call, I would know to raise my hand and shout ‘present.’
valdemar is actually a fairly common name in latin america. [seriously.] where were you born? blame a cuban doctor or a brazilian footballer.
i have a shona ex-boyfriend who has a fairly easy western first name [he’s named after a dude with whom his father played football] but who preferred to go by his shona name. that is, until he got to the uk, and *nobody* [except me, it seems] could pronounce it. he’s since changed it — legally — to a nickname which happens to be the first name of a fairly well known athlete who was born the day after he was. given how i know how the name came about, i’m highly amused.
I have to say, the best was the name of my car insurance broker. His name was Wanky (I double checked the spelling on his business card) I nearly fell over when he introduced himself with a very straight face.
I also feel the European names that were, and still are given to Africans (although I am A white African) just to make it easier for other people to pronounce is stupid, and lazy on the part of people who won’t learn to pronounce it. One can learn to pronounce even the most difficult name. I must however admit it is quite funny listening to the different versions of “Xolani” hehehe… It’s either Solani, Tolani, Zolani, Kolani…anything but proper Xolani with the click!!
Jesus! (Lots of Hispanics have that name. Say “Hay-soos”. And then there’s the proud and dedicated Mexican fire-fighter who called his twin baby sons Jose Number 1 and Jose Number 2…)
I was once served by a waitress called Petulant. She was quite sweet. And I’ve encountered a Wimpy griller called Officious, who came across as perfectly charming.
I had a spell working in Bloemfontein’s Traffic Registration department and wow were there some strange names on those forms. The one which springs to mind probably because I’m getting old is someone who was named Adolf Hitler Potgieter! I mean really, who wants to remember him. When I worked at Fort Hare capturing Registrations I remember there being a student whose first three names were Churchill Oscar Dennis >>>>> which tickled me pink since his initials were COD the abbreviation for cash on delivery. My housekeeper has given her son the cartoon name of Linus from the Charlie Brown strip. This is not that bizarre really because we called our youngest Peanut from the same cartoon as a nickname although his name was actually a strong and old Scottish name. There is a good side to these strange names and that is one does not forget them nearly as easily ever. I often wish my parents had given me a less common first name as there were no fewer than 8 of us with this name when I was at school. I got the nickname Goolie and had no idea that it had other connotations until I met my BIL who thought it hysterical. Not the best way to be introduced to your new family who were strange argumentative people anyway.
I cant stop laughing. The responses here are hillarrious.
But I have to say “Cassey” what are you on about? White name and then you want to go PC? Nonetheless, this is Mzansi and the more we laught at ourselves the better we can accept our differences.
Nice one Val!!!! By the way my Sotho name is Diale but white people keep calling me “dial”…excuse the pun
Even some African names are “funny” - there is a person called Keitumetse [I’m delighted - loosely translated] Marago [Its a surname and it s Buttocks] Its weired calling the person especially if you understand the meaning/language. Others are Mabeleapoo [Ox’s breasts], Rapolo. Ofcourse they are not meant to be derogatory but you can twist them with ease.
The three flight attendants from Jhb to Dbn on one occasion were Faith, Hope and Charity, none particularly showing the recognised attributes.
However, my mother’s sage advice: with a surname like ours (difficult to spell) your children need short christian names. Otherwise it takes them too long to learn to read and write them and too difficult for others to learn to do the same.
Nice, well written article.my parents named me KNOWLEDGE and they have failed to provide a meaningful explanation surronding my name.But when i grew up i had friends with names such as;HIGHMAN,DO-IT,BLESSMORE,NEVER and MESSAGE
knowledge mabhena on November 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I’ve spent a view days in Norway and i was surprised that they all called my name and here in S.A people can’t pronounce my Zulu name.
Made me think people don’t pick up on our languages cos they think they are inferior.
You should here students at the University of Oslo and Molde HGS sing Thumamina, Shosholoza and Senzeni Na.
I like my English name, am named after a male artist that wears pink tight pants and writes songs with tittles like ‘Sexual suicide’, ‘Can we funk’, ‘Irrestible b**+ch”
One nation which seems particularly prosaic about names is the Chinese. Every Chinese person I’ve met in this country has a name like David or Alice or Cane. I often wonder if they simply pick a name because they know in the long run it will be easier, or if these are actually their given names.
I have Zulu speakers named Computer and Professor. And here in Canada I have heard of a Heavenly Precious Beaver. Of course celebrities often damn their children with Apple etc. And Brad Pitt named his daughter Shiloh Pitt.
Sipho,do you know the reasoning behind nasty names like “Mbulaleni,mgwazeni,vikinduku,mshayazafe,matlakala” etc?Apparently,its compulsory to give a child such names in some situations?How true is that?
Well, it may be worth visiting Sri Lanka before judging poor old whiteys inability to pronounce black African names. If you can come back from there and honestly say you could say the average person’s real name, not their nickname mind you, you can criticize whoever you like!
Conjeepuram Balakrishnan Shivaswami Saravanalanganingham Prabharkar Iyer on November 3rd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
@MuAfrika. It’s not that (white) people here think that african languages/names are inferior.
In my case the explanation is much simpler. I simply cannot hear all the sounds in the an african name/language. I remember sharing a laboratory table with a Zulu man during soil science practicals at University. I called him by his surname, Shongwe, as I simply could not hear all the syllables in his Zulu first name. He wrote his name down for me - there was at least six syllables - and pronounced it slowly because I really wanted to get it right. And I simply couldn’t get it right - I could only hear, and therefore pronounce, 3 distinct syllables.
I have the same problem when trying to learn seTswana or isiZulu. Having grown up in a sheltered lower middle class white neighbourhood during the last few apartheid years, I didn’t hear an african language until I was at least 5 or 6 years old.
I think it is the same problem that Japanese / Chinese have with the r and l sounds - they don’t have both sounds in their language and if they don’t hear a language containing both sounds by the age of about three or four, they simply cannot hear or pronounce the sound right later on in their lives.
Well thank dog you were not born into Frank Zappa’s family. His son is Dweezil Zappa, which sounds like a combo of Dweeb and Weasel and his daughter is going through life as Moon Unit Zappa. It makes Precious and Alizette seem workable.
There’s an eMail going around at the moment, containing a scanned copy of a SA ID book. The name - Foki Voeltjie.
And it’s not a uniquely SA thing either to give children bizarre names. A Kenyan friend of mine wass telling me about the names of babies following Bill Clinton’s visit to that country. And recall the 2004 Olympics when Kirsty Coventry from Zim did so well? Iremember the name given to a child born around that time was Swimmington.
That practice is actually an old Zulu practice stemming back to the old Mfecane days, where you would name your child either after a great feat of war that was performed on the day the child was born, or after some characteristic of trait you want your child to display later on in line. So “Mbulaleni (Kill him!)” was probably named so because a great hero was killed on his birth day. I know a guy named “Sgwili (rich man)”.
Was the late head of the Zimbabwe armed forces, General Vitalis Zvinavashe named after a hair tonic popular in the 50’s & 60’s or is Vitalis a traditional Shona name?
The best name I’ve heard is ‘Ringshop”; I think his mother must have looked at him at birth and thought ‘he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen’ and named him after that; the jewellry store.
My children have gaelic/Irish names, which are names of saints; these days we need all the help we can get.
keep on writing; you are an amazing and thoughtful writer.
And if it makes you feel any better, I guess every country has odd names: a very old-fashioned French Canadian name was ‘Seraphin”, and he was a tightwad not an angel.
And you might want to take a look at “Freakonomics” and the chapter where the authors analyze the influence of names on success in the Black American community; they looked at First Names and income tax figures (correlating the income/name). They found that the higher incomes were associated with traditional names; John, Thomas, and so forth. And the lower incomes associated with more, shall we say, um, creative? names: Le Shaun; Shaquille…and so forth. The conclusion was that people who named their children after ‘traditional’ names, held ‘traditional’ values, hard work, saving, education. People who went the other route, did not apparently share those values. It makes for interesting reading.
@ La Quebecoise
—They found that the higher incomes were associated with traditional names; John, Thomas, and so forth. And the lower incomes associated with more, shall we say, um, creative? names: Le Shaun; Shaquille…and so forth—
I’d take a guess and say this is probably because employers found it easy to throw away your CV as soon as they saw the name Shaquille-hence the corporate stereotyping applies world wide. (Although the only Shaq i know got paid in the NBA ha ha)
Anyhow I think there is often a link to destiny in the name like Rolihlahla, Gedleyihlekisa…
This is hilarious, Waldemar!!!
Some coloured people do the same thing — give their children ‘exotic or ‘Days of our lives’ / ‘Bold and the beautiful’ names, such as Autumn or Cassaaaandrah. The best is when the names are constructed from half of the mother and half of the father’s names, something like Hendri and Patricia would make Hendritia, shame… Thank heavens I got a pretty normal name… however, my sister was named Desmarina (a name she despises, she now goes by Dessie), and shame, her second name is Lecretia… as long as the aahhhh and the sh is there, hey.
@MuAfrika. Yes, you’re right; I re-read the chapter. As for your comment: “Anyhow I think there is often a link to destiny in the name like Rolihlahla, Gedleyihlekisa…” two things; Rolihlahla is a lawyer, and neither gentleman applied for a ‘job’ at a corporation. I think you’re on to something though with destiny.
Rolihlahla and Gedleyihlekisa have had events in their lives that you can use their names to explain the event. At one point Rolihlahla ubehola ihlahla and recently Ugedleyihlekisa ubegedla eyihlekisa kanti uphokophelele ukuyigudluza.
i’ve run across plenty of sets of twins with names which meant the same things in two different languages.
ramatou and mercedes was my favorite one; the parents were of two different religions, and were so happy to be having twin girls so they could each name a child appropriate to custom. the parents saw it as a sign that the parents should work out their religious differences.
funnily enough, ramatou is now married to a pentacostal minister, and mercedes is married to an imam — who doesn’t want her to convert. both he and his congregation feel that she grew up muslim enough to be able to marry an imam without converting.
[they also know that her twin is named ramatou, so changing her name would be problematic.]
I wonder if the mispronounciation of African names is down to the fact that to many Westerners that is the only time they have heard that name, plus not necessarily having gorwn up with certain sounds such as clicks.
There could even be a third reason, which is that I think people tend to be very relaxed about mispronounciations of European names. My English friend Sarah, living in Ghana, never corrects people who, though perfect speakers of English, pronounce her name Serra due to their accent. She knows they mean her, so she lets it be.
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Sipho Hlongwane has done none of the things that normally qualify people to be on this august site. He has never written a book, or completed a fancy PhD in the vagaries of politics, economics or even a BA.
What he does then, is scribble. For fun. And that somehow landed him here. He earns his keep as a very tiny cog in a massive industrial machine, and occupies his evenings and early mornings slogging away at an LLB degree.
An avid fan of jelly beans, reading and Arsenal FC, he enjoys political satire (what he does not enjoy is talking of himself in the third person) and thinks that South Africans tend to take themselves a little too seriously. May this blog never fall into the same trap.
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It is a pity that we seem to be perpetuating a a practice of colonial convenience. My two sons are Boitumelo and Teboho and do not have any of these colonial names. Not that there is anything wrong with them.
Thanks very much for raising this matter and lets keep this discussion rolling. Lets help more of our African brothers and sisters out of the master/slave slumber. Wake up, the chains are off!
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