Zulu How Babies Are Named

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American business woman Kimora Lee Simmons with daughters Aoki Lee and Ming Lee. 

What’s your name?

Boy.

What’s your name?

Girl.

It’s not as simple as that. When languages leave home and go to Australia, Canada, U.S. and Europe, they lose meaning. Some American parents have a reason for adding Junior (JR) to sons’ names. Americans of Chinese descent end up being MAY because they get tired of explaining the origins of their names.

In Africa, babies get their names from parents’ wishes for the future, tradition and what was happening when they were born. Maybe the rain was too much for that particular season. Maybe a long lost brother returned with riches or was deported. Maybe the family wanted a baby girl after six boys, or vice versa. Therefore naming babies is more than this question.

What’s your name?

Boy.

What’s your name?

Girl.

Bafana: a boy’s name. Ba-fa-na. You say the first part like baba, the second like fun and the last like numb.

Ntombi: a girl’s name. Nto-mbi. You say the first part like anoint, the second like limb. Please note that Ntombi can be a short version for, a beautiful girl, a daughter of a particular surname or an event which means girls have arrived.

These two names are just abbreviations of sentences explaining who, what, why and how something happened, when the baby gave that first cry.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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