By Indian standards these African names are not weird at all. They only seem weird in their transliteration into English.
After all a name like "Viswalingam" would translate literally to "world-penis", and Shivalingaswamy would be "Mr Shiv's penis" or some such thing. And we have people in North Karnataka with names like "Thenginakayi" (coconut) and "Menasinkayi" (chili) I wonder if the pressing need to translate into English is itself indicative of a particular psyche? Are these name changes coming into being because of real or perceived advantages in being easily pronounceable by an anglophone audience? I like the original African names better. shiv On Monday 08 Oct 2007 12:20 pm, ashok _ wrote: > On 10/6/07, Biju Chacko wrote: > > While there were a few cases of people changing their names in a way > > we would consider reasonable: Yellow, for example, changed his name to > > Ian. On the other hand, Sunday changed his name to Friday, Record > > Player changed his name to Football and, my favorite, Spider renamed > > himself Bicycle. > > at least in kenya some of these names are used because they are direct > translations of african names. I met a guy from western kenya called > "scorpion" because he was from the scorpion clan of one of the pokot > tribes.... his name would have been 'chepkunkuil' but when he moved to > the city it was easier to fit in to his urban aspirations using a more > anglicised name. > > I have also met a guy called "toyota" and another called "rover" > (toyota was born inside a toyota while they were taking his mother to > the hospital). I also met a guy who had a first name "tall" (i checked > his identity card)... because he was tall, and when he was a child, > people used to call him "mrefu" (which is tall in swahili). > > presidential / prime minister names are also very popular - i have > met: washington, roosevelt, kennedy, nixon, reagan, clinton, > churchill, indira (popular among women) , havent met a Bush yet.
