Akan Names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_names

by Amorymeltzer • 3 years ago

114 37 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

dmux• 3 years ago

Tangentially related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child

understanding varies naming tradition is interesting and useful. I always spend many time on deciding how to abbreviate people's name.

bradrn• 3 years ago

Wikipedia has several other articles about interesting naming systems, e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_names (traditionally exactly one syllable long)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name (in East Asian tradition, each generation gets the next syllable of a poem)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions (comprised of three parts, not two)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_names (surname is written first, unlike most European names)

ChainOfFools• 3 years ago

Traditional Japanese naming for boys, not followed as widely these days as in the past literally just gives each kid a number ordering them by cardinality. Ichiro = first son, Nichiro = second son, Saburo = third son and so on. I remember watching a TV show or maybe a movie from the black and white rerun era, where a stereotyped Asian father addressed his boys not by name but by number, as first son and second son and so on.

I thought at the time this was some kind of ignorant caricature of the traditional primacy given to the first male child of a family, though not at all exclusive to Asia rather overtly expressed there. I was quite surprised to find out later on that this was a pretty straightforward calque of a genuine custom.

ithkuil• 3 years ago

Not that uncommon in some parts of Italy to meet old people named "Primo", "Secondo", ...

A friend of mine had a grandmother called "Finimmola" (let's stop it), the youngest of 8. The seventh was "Ultimo" (last)

wodenokoto• 3 years ago

Isn’t that also a plot point in “your name”?

where a stereotyped Asian father addressed his boys not by name but by number

That really shouldn’t make its way into the translation

rolisz2• 3 years ago

sigh why are Hungarians so special? It created confusion in my mind as to which one is the first mind (I'm half Hungarian)

zarzavat2• 3 years ago

According to Wikipedia, Akwasi Kwarteng, the British Chancellor of September to October 2022, was born on Monday 26 May 1975. But according to this “Akwasi” is a Sunday name. I wonder what happened?

DrJid• 3 years ago

Heh - Perhaps he was born in the US timezone where it was a Sunday evening, but in his home country, Ghana, it was a Monday.

mrob• 3 years ago

He was born in the UK, which shares the same time zone with Ghana. The local time would have differed by only one hour because of daylight saving time being observed in the UK but not in Ghana.

smcl• 3 years ago

Giving birth can take quite a while so perhaps it started on Sunday evening and finished on Monday morning?

nilstycho• 3 years ago

His economist father and barrister mother gave him a traditional Ashanti first name, meaning "born on Sunday", when he was actually born on a Monday. He told the BBC's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast his parents stayed silent on the matter when he jokingly pulled them up on it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62796213 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p095j38y

zarzavat2• 3 years ago

Thanks for that! Apparently he doesn’t know either.

Also what an awkward introduction on that podcast, holy hell!

BellsOnSunday• 3 years ago

Given what he did to the British economy in the shortest tenure of any chancellor, it's easy to believe he doesn't know what day it is.

emmelaich• 3 years ago

Also interesting are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_name

Wayan = eldest ...

JSR_FDED• 3 years ago

It’s like Hungarian notation for variable names. Instead of lpszSimon it’s firstBornTwinOnMondayDeliveredInAFieldSimon.

ivolimmen• 3 years ago

Found the old IT guy ..

skitter• 3 years ago

They might need to contact their RelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter[1]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco...

drpixie• 3 years ago

Nice. Anglos have a similar but not so common tradition where kids (usually female children) are named after their birth month (April, May or June are common) or occasionally their birth weekday (eg. Wednesday Addams)

AmericanChopper2• 3 years ago

This is pretty common in Indonesia as well, but they tend to have names that are similar but slightly different to the actual name of the month, like Febriana for the month Februari, Desi for Desember, etc…

n4r9• 3 years ago

Interestingly Wednesday Adams was named after the nursery rhyme "Monday's Child", rather than the day she was born. The rhyme has the line "Wednesday's child is full of woe". In the Netflix show she's actually born on a Friday 13th.

DoreenMichele• 3 years ago

I had always heard that Roman names like Septimius and Octavia were given based on birth order within the family but this piece suggests it was more likely the number of the month of their birth:

https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/15623/why-did-so-m...

AmericanChopper2• 3 years ago

There’s a Balinese tradition similar to this, where they have a few name options for each child in order up to the 4th child. If you have 5 or more children you start again from the first name and append “balik” which basically translates to “return to” or “again”.

pxeger12• 3 years ago

It's interesting how common it is across different cultures that there are different names for boys and girls. I wonder why this happened?

resolutebat• 3 years ago

This is by no means universal. Balinese names, in particular, are typically by birth order regardless of gender.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_name

pxeger12• 3 years ago

I'm aware it's not nearly universal, but it does happen a lot.

jgilias• 3 years ago

Man… Now these are horrible names to have:

father refuses responsibility

Obím̀pέ "nobody wants"

Yεmpέw "we don't want you"

wsgeorge• 3 years ago

Day names are common across ethnic groups within Ghana, and different southern ethnic groups have similar sounding names.

For instance, Kojo, Kwadwo, Jojo, Cudjo are all Monday names across different southern languages. Yaw, Yao, Yawa are Thursday names, etc.

Kwame and Komla are Tuesday names from mutually unintelligible southern languages.

It's common for foreign nationals adopted by locals to be given an appropriate day name.

secureD• 3 years ago

Kwame is Saturday and Komla is Tuesday

ainiriand2• 3 years ago

In Spain it was common to name the children according to the catholic Saint's day. And because all saints had a day then your birthday was also called the day of your Saint. My mother and her siblings are all named with this system.

marginalia_nu• 3 years ago

Imagine being born on all saints day and having every name from Augustine to Xenia.

ainiriand2• 3 years ago

We have a name for that: Santos.

sslayer• 3 years ago

Wednesday = Spider, is this were Wednesday Addams got her name from??

wageslave99• 3 years ago

Reading about this kind of tradition got me thinking: do anyone name their children with phonetic names? I mean, names that can be read the same in several languages. For example: English-Spanish, French-English, etc. Is there a tradition on that?

rolisz2• 3 years ago

I was named Roland because it exists in both Romanian (my mother's family) and Hungarian (dad's family). It's not pronounced exactly the same (the a is different), but it's easy enough for all grandparents. And I even learned both languages, much to the relief of my grandparents.

But I was almost named Julian, because my dad had the idea for Roland only when checking me out from maternity.

distantaidenn• 3 years ago

Yep, this is something my fiancé and I are actively planning for at the moment.

In her culture and language, having a native-sounding name provides an individual with all the societal advantages as a default. Conversely, possessing a non-native name, regardless of citizenship status, invariably leads to the perception of being a foreigner. This results in assumptions about language proficiency and a constant exceptionality.

So, we are deciding on names for our future children that would resonate as "native" in both English and her mother tongue.

h0nd• 3 years ago

In Indonesia, people name their children after the name of the months:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_names#Origin_of_nam...

Akan Names

Related Stories