By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

ONE of the ways of measuring how a community has been affected by a foreign social culture is to compile names of its people.
The more there are foreign names, the deeper the community’s social culture was adversely affected.
Examples of this phenomenon occur in many parts of the world where various colonial powers imposed their cultures by denigrating indigenous peoples’ culture.
We must not confuse culture with technology; the technology of various colonial powers having been greatly improved by the Industrial Revolution.
Names of a large number of people in southern Tanzania are German and so are those of Namibia and Cameroon.
American names abound in the Philippines, a testimony of the period when that Asian country was an American colony.
Under normal traditional circumstances, names were an unmistakable means of ethno-national identity.
Aristotle, Archimedes and Socrates are Greek names while Suetronius, Gaius, Tranquillus, Brutus and Stettinus are Roman names.
We can give many more examples of other names and their origins.
But in Africa, we come across a rather different cultural phenomenon whereby black people of former British (English), French, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian colonies show much pride in giving themselves and their children names originating in the former colonial countries and not in those countries’ indigenous languages.
This may sound a cultural trifle until one bears in mind that one never comes across a Scottish, Spanish, English, French, Italian or German child with an African name, not even those born and bred in Africa.
That is because their parents have much pride in what they are, so much unlike us Africans. We are, in effect, telling God that he made a mistake by creating the African race, hence we call ourselves Charleses while our sons are Richards, Dorothies or Marys.
Does it not sound very funny for a black person from Embakwe, Tjingababili, Karoi, Tjefunye, Gutu or Gadzema to be named Richard Charles; Theophilus Dickson; Jane Johnson; Matthew Watson or whatever else?
We should appreciate the fact that when we decided to free ourselves from colonialism, it was from its repressive and demeaning aspects we meant to liberate ourselves. Those aspects are its culture which includes foreign names.
We should not mistake education with culture, particularly nomenclature; that is a community’s system of names for people and things.
A good educational system develops self-pride and self-confidence, two very important by-products of sound education.
Pride in one’s culture is an integral part of a liberated mind.
One’s culture is in one’s language; and there is no better way to show pride in one’s culture than to name oneself and one’s children in indigenous languages.
In the late 1960s, a couple of years after Col Joseph Mobutu had seized political power in the DRC, his administration launched a national campaign to decolonise the people culturally.
An aspect of that campaign was to do away with colonial (foreign) names by replacing them with indigenous Zairese ones. That was what he termed a policy of ‘authenticity’.
He himself adopted a completely Zairese name, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Wazabenge, the English translation being ‘the hero of heroes, the cock that leaves no hen untouched’.
That meant more to him and the people of Zaire than his original name, Joseph Desire Mobutu.
Many Zairese people discarded their old French names and adopted indigenous ones whose meanings were clear to the bearer and all other people.
It was very interesting to note that while Zaire was going ‘authentic’, its neighbour across the Congo River, the Congo Republic, whose capital is Brazzaville, most strongly criticised the campaign.
Congo (Brazzaville) was instead encouraging its people to take pride in what it described as Christian names.
Incidentally, the Congo’s (Brazzaville’s) founding president was a very culturally transformed senior Roman Catholic clergyman, a Frenchman in a black skin.
Formerly colonised countries should realise that the decolonisation process cannot be said to have correctly ended while the new generations still look to the former metropolitan powers for cultural guidance.
It is important that the African continent, comprising 55 independent states, should be making a historic impact on the world’s cultural landscape at such global organisations as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
During the early days of Guniea (Conakry’s) independence, that country formed a ballet ensemble which toured and mesmerised many friendly states.
Its performance was as excellent as the universally celebrated Moscow-based ballet of the now defunct Soviet Union.
African nations have more to offer the world than most probably any other continent, especially in culinary culture some of whose traditional dishes are currently regarded as the most wholesome by all renowned food experts.
In addition to our culinary culture, our nomenclature is certainly second to none.
Consider these names and their respective meanings: Tapiwa, Sinikiwe, Tapuwa, Ngonidzahe, Musawenkosi, Ngonidzashe, Tawanda, Siyanda, Ludo, Thando, Rudo, Toboka, Bokani, Tendani, Bongani, Itumeleng, Siyabonga, Nkosipile, Wedu, Milikani, Phakamani, Simukai, Tafadzwa, Jabulani and Njabulo.
All African (Bantu) names mean something, very much unlike in some cultures in which some names are shared with pets!
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email: sgwakuba@gmail.com