WHAT'S IN A NAME... GOD KNOWS

One of the thing that surprised me most at school were the Western names that many of the children have; Catherine, Lucy, Daniel, Samuel (spelt Samwell). I guess a lot of them are biblical names but I had expected more exotic, African sounding names. I’m not actually sure what an African sounding name is, now that that I think about it. But you know what I mean!

That said, names are fairly loose here. Because Swahili is a phonetic lanuage and for many other reasons I don’t quite understand, the spelling of names tends to change, depending on God knows what. One child told me that she spells her name both Mary and Mery. I’m not sure how she decides – perhaps just on a whim. But essentially it doesn’t matter too much if you misspell someone’s name here! They’ll probably bugger yours up too.

But not all the children are called by names that would be commonly used in my world. What I really didn’t expect were some of the God names. Yep, there are many God variations here. You have to hear them to believe them. We have children called wait for it...
Godlove, Godson , Godliving, Goodluck , Godlisten and Godbless (I wonder what they say when he sneezes)…So far, I have only met boys called by names starting with God! It seems that God is a man here too.

Even though I was starting to adjust to the names, I was still surprised to hear “Godlisten is coming to dinner tonight”. It’s just not the dinner guest you expect really, be it in Africa or anywhere else for that matter! And then there are the unexpected ones like Innocent, Queen or Loveness

And finally you’ll be glad to know there are few African-sounding names (yes, I'm still going to be vague about what qualifies as African sounding but I know what I mean)…
Ebenako, Melkizadeki (no idea how to say this one), Elibariki (my personal favourite because I just love the way it sounds), Esuvat, Baraka (like Berroca the drink except erm, it sounds different and it means “Blessed”, not “cure for a hangover”), Amani (means Peace), and not forgetting my friend Enjuvai! And there's lots more...

And apparently there are children called Shida, which means problem! Yes, there are parents who do that! God knows why – or maybe Godlisten knows…