Africa is a continent with a diverse culture, which is quite different from others. Perhaps this is the result of mixing many features of the tribes living in this 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. African names hide in themselves a secret meaning and a certain meaning, so they carefully hide from others. 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.
Indigenous people believe that African names have a significant impact on how a person's fate develops, and even on how he will look. A person who is called by a significant name, as if he is following the intended 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 can be negative. In this case, the first part refers to a personal name, and the second serves as a component of verbal protection of a person from the surrounding negative effects.
In addition, African names have another distinguishing feature: they can change throughout the course of a person’s life. This is necessary in order to confuse the evil spirits that lie in wait for a person and push him to rash and bad deeds.
Changing the name confuses them and thus protects the person. Nevertheless, observing how people with fair skin live, Africans changed their unique names to Christian ones. It is believed that this will lure the
white man’s luck
. The indigenous people, who envied the welfare of white people, but feared angry spirits, supplemented African names with Christian ones. Similarly, names like John Ndiphon or Matren Kake appeared.
The most common African names (male): Zamba, Vekesa, Boipelo, Neo, Simba and others.
The name 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 influences, has a unique life position and attitude. The first name is given to the child on the eighth day of his life. This name is special because it differs depending on the gender and the order in which the baby appears. For example, if the boy was the first-born, then he was called the name of the mother’s father, but if the girl, she was named after her paternal grandmother. In the event that the child was the second in the family, the boy was given the name of his paternal grandfather. In this case, the female child was called the name of the grandmother on the maternal branch. In addition, many additional factors influenced the choice of the name: how and where the child was born, for example, some significant event could have happened, and this would have affected the name of the child.
The most common African names (female): Agiambo, Aina, Akoko, Dikeledi and others.