Baby Naming BATTLES
Is a name worth the fight?
‘My name is Cynthia Susan Scolastica Nyakega Wambui Mwangi,’ states a two-year-old girl. “Now where on earth did she get all those names?”, you wonder aloud.
You are pregnant and suddenly you start to think about your baby’s names. Do you have a name for your baby? Have you discussed this with your spouse? Is your baby’s name an important subject?
Naming of a baby, whether it is the maiden name or a baptism name can become a bone of contention between couples. Some families have been split on this issue, and other family members held lifelong grudges because of baby names.
Esther Wahome: ‘My husband and I believe in the power of names.’
Esther has been attending antenatal clinics and it was at one of these clinics, that she asked the doctor if it was possible to know the sex of the baby. The doctor was a bit hesitant to tell her as this could have implications later on. However, she got to know that she was expecting a baby boy from a later clinic. She already has a name for her baby boy, Eldad Mureithi.
Mureithi is her father-in-law’s name while Eldad is a Hebrew name. The name means God has loved. It is the name of a prophet in the Bible, in Numbers 11:26. He was favoured among seventy prophets. She believes that her son will be favoured by God among men. Esther says that she and her husband strongly believe in the power of names. For instance, her names are Esther Wangui. According to her the names are true about the person she is. ‘Esther’ means star, and the most famous Esther was a queen. She possessed both outer and inner beauty. Her maiden name ‘Wangui’, is symbolic of one who leads songs. Talking about her father-in-law whom the baby will be named after, Esther says that he is God-fearing and has offered them the right guidance and therefore they are happy to name the baby after him.
The couple would be ready to break the Kikuyu tradition of naming the child after relatives, if they felt that the names were not suitable, or the people to be named after were not God-fearing.
Esther confesses that she was hoping that the scan had shown that twins were on the way,so that she could name her parents too. The first thing she asked the doctor who was attending her was ‘how many are they?’
Stanley Okati: ‘We had conflicts both between us and with extended family members.’
Sometimes naming of a baby catches you unawares, especially when the baby’s sex turns out to be the unexpected one. Before our first child was born six-and-a-half years ago, we thought we would get a baby girl. The name we had in mind was Shanell. But then we got a boy and I was at a loss as to what name to give him. His mother named him Leon and challenged me to come up with the second name. I thought of Ishmael, hence we named him Leon Ishmael.
Ishmael is my grandfather’s brother who lived for 110 years. He passed on in the year 1989. My real grandpa died in 1945 during the Second World War and we never got to see him. Ishmael was a very charming man, very educative and full of advice on matters concerning life, and how one should go about achieving his goals. We look upon our boy, Leon Ishmael, with a lot of hope that he may become wise like his namesake.
‘My dad also proposed the name ‘Britol’ to mark Italy’s win at the 2006 world cup’
On 12 July 2006 at about one-thirty in the afternoon we were surprised to get another baby boy. To be honest, we did not have a name in mind as we once again, expected a baby girl. Our old name Shanell had kept lingering in our minds but now we had a new challenge. It took us three days to come up with the name Blessing. Later on that day however we changed it to the Kiswahili version Baraka. Indeed this baby was a blessing, since our parents thought we were not committed to our marriage, because it had taken us ‘too long’ to get a second child. This had caused a lot of anxiety and led to lots of probing and concern. What they did not know was that we had chosen not to have another baby for at least five years, as we planned to build our careers, go into business and also acquire our own house, all of which we had recently achieved.
Back to the naming of the second baby. My wife and I had a few conflicts. At first I proposed to name the baby after her father, but she declined due to personal reasons.
My father called me from upcountry asking us to name the boy after my wife’s father, but my wife once again declined. My dad also proposed the name Britol, to mark Italy’s win at the 2006 world cup. I am a Luo and one of our tribe’s tendencies is to name our children to mark certain events. My sister-in-law Selijah proposed yet more names: Jabali, Johari or Amani. So what would his names eventually be? Deelan Baraka Oduor.
Deelan is an old Australian friend and Odour is my last name which I really do not like using but which my wife silently sneaked in. She thought it was ideal to have the name go down in our genealogical tree!
During my first pregnancy some friends asked me whether I was expecting a boy or a girl, and if I had ideas on baby names. Well, the answers to both questions were negative. I did not know the sex of the baby and neither had I thought of the names we would give the baby.
But as time went on, I started envisioning a cute little angel, a baby girl. At that time, my husband was so sure it was a boy he did not even want to hear the notion that it could be a girl! I always told him if it was a girl, I wanted to name her Sandra, just like me! He was not for the idea. I said if it was a boy, we should name him Arthur, after my dad. This did not seem to appease him either. He did not want to carry lineages through his children and was emphatic; the child would not have any traditional names, or be named after any person, alive or dead!
On 25 July 2004 when I went into labour, I kept wondering what the baby would be called, as we had not come to any consensus. The following morning, the baby arrived and my husband (who was gloating that his prediction of a boy had come true), quickly named the baby Trevor. Now where did that name come from? When my mother-in-law came to the hospital, she immediately announced that the baby’s ‘other’ name was Samuel. I was taken aback!
So what happened to Arthur? Or any other names I had in mind? Is a name worth the fight — frankly speaking? I guess I just closed my eyes to it all and decided, well, a name is a name. Or is it?
Now I am 37 weeks pregnant with my second child, and all the surfing on the internet has not yielded any suggestions, on suitable baby names. If am not careful, I may end up with two names I do not want or think of! Let’s wait and see…
Sandra Mulluka
END: PG 3/57-58