African names - a special branch of African culture

Africa is a continent with a diverse culture, which is quite different from the others. Perhaps this is the result of a mixture of many features of the tribes living in the territory. African culture, in particular music and art, illustrates the diversity of social and religious characteristics of the peoples living there.

In particular, one of the manifestations of cultural identity is the name of naming. African names hide a secret meaning and a certain meaning, therefore they hide themselves in the most careful way from those around them. Such a name will be known only to the closest people. To name your "true" name means to be confident in the reliability, respect and trust of a person.

The indigenous population believes that African names have a significant impact on how the fate of a person will develop, and even how it will look. A person named by a meaningful name, as if walking along a predetermined path, his life has its own special meaning. The name can be double, i.e. One of the parts can be positive, and the other - negative. In this case, the first part refers to a personal name, and the second part is a component of the person's verbal defense from the surrounding negative impact.

In addition, African names have one more distinctive feature: they can change throughout the life course of a person. This is necessary in order to confuse the evil spirits that lie in wait for a person and push him to ill-considered and bad deeds. Changing the name confuses them and thus protects the person. Nevertheless, watching how people live with fair skin, Africans changed their unique names to Christian ones. It is believed that this will entice the white man's luck. The indigenous people, who envied the welfare of white people, but were afraid of angry spirits, supplemented African names with Christian ones. Similarly, names such as John Ndifon or Matren Kake appeared.

The most common African names (male): Zemba, Vekesa, Boipelo, Neo, Simba and others.

Naming was and remains a special moment in the life of every person. An African who undergoes this procedure several times in his life is protected from negative influence, has a unique lifestyle and attitude. The first name is given to the child on the eighth day of his life. This name is special, because it varies depending on the sex and the order of the baby's appearance. For example, if the firstborn was a boy, then the name of the mother's father was named, if the girl was, then she was named after her grandmother on the paternal line. In the event that the child was the second in the family, the boy was given the name of his grandfather on the paternal line. The female child in this case was named after the grandmother by the mother branch. In addition, the choice of the name was influenced by many additional factors: how and where the child was born, for example, any significant event could occur, and this would affect the name of the child.

The most common African names (female): Agiambo, Aina, Akoko, Dikaledi and others.