Anthroponymy and Toponymy: Culture and Politics in Kenya’s Personal and Place Names

by Wanjala S. Nasong’o*

Editorial: This is the first essay in Part II of the inaugural issue of The Nairobi Reader, a literary and cultural magazine. The Introduction to the special issue is available here.

One of the most basic functions of language, any language, is naming. It is by naming something—a person, a place, an object, an event—that we are enabled to communicate about the same. As Maria Popova (2015) rightly notes, to name a thing is to acknowledge its existence as separate from everything else that has a name. It is to confer upon the named thing the dignity of autonomy while simultaneously affirming its belonging with the rest of the namable world. Naming transforms the strangeness of the named object into familiarity, and such familiarity is the basis of empathy, which is one of the most foundational attributes of humanness. In Popova’s view, to name is to pay attention; to name is to love. Parents name their babies as a first non-biological marker of individuality within the human community; lovers give each other private nicknames that sanctify their intimacy. The significance of naming is further underscored by the fact that when humans began giving names to domesticated animals, such animals were transformed from being just animals to being pets; they ceased being beasts and became members of the household.

In spite of the above, naming is not a simple, uncomplicated affair. Language is a means of power. It provides the basis for knowing people, places, animals, and objects—both animate and inanimate things. If this is so, then naming, the very first act of language, is at the centre of power. When we name something, be it a person, an individual animal or a whole species, we not only choose how we want to represent that person or animal but also how others are to represent and perceive the same. By naming, therefore, we lay the foundations of representations and perceptions that are to follow. This makes naming a powerful tool of control (Borkfelt 2011). In other words, the names we give to individuals, places, events, and objects are much more than mere labels. As Gabrielle Lynch (2016) observes, names help to structure and nuance the way we imagine and understand the world. Accepted names are embedded in a larger politics of storytelling. As a result, Lynch argues, names and the ability to name are inherently political due to the power relations involved and the discourses and actions they facilitate and hinder. For example, the question of whether someone is referred to as a ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter’, a ‘political opponent’ or an ‘enemy of the people’, or whether a space is designated a ‘public park’ or a ‘national reserve’, assigns a set of characteristics to the person or space in question that can help legitimise certain forms of engagement and action, and delegitimise others.

In this essay, I reflect on the cultural significance of names using selected ethnic groups in Kenya and on the politics of naming spaces in the country with particular focus on urban spaces. The purpose is to underscore and help illuminate the cultural significance of naming and the power politics that is inherent in the processes of naming and renaming urban spaces. The often-asked question—what’s in a name?—finds an effective response in the discussion that follows.

The Cultural Significance of Names in Kenya

In Kenya, as is the case elsewhere, names have both practical and symbolic significance. The process of naming is essentially a process of identity formation and identity perpetuation. A typical Kenyan generally has three names. The first name, usually a religious one, may be chosen by the parents or left to the child to choose once they come of age. Indeed, in many cases, once they grow up, some children do drop the first names given to them by parents and pick their own preferred ones. The second name, which is usually the most important for individual identity, is given at birth in accordance with the naming system of the ethnic community into which the child is born. The third name is usually the family name, from the father’s side, Kenyan communities being largely patrilineal in lineage. Kenya has more than forty ethnic groups. Each of these ethnic groups has its own unique naming system though there are patterns of naming that cut across some of these groups. In some communities, children are named on the basis of the time of day or night they are born; in others, naming is based on the family or cultural circumstances in which the child is born, or the main socio-cultural activity going on during the season in which the child is born; while in other communities, children are named systematically after their parents’ adult relatives.

Among the Luhyia, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, a child born at night is named Wabwile (boy) or Nabwile (girl); a child born during the rainy season is named Wafula (boy) or Nafula (girl); one born during the harvest season is named Wekesa (boy) or Nekesa (girl); a child born during a famine is named Wanjala (boy) or Nanjala (girl); a child born during the weeding season is named Naliaka (girl) or Wanyonyi (boy); a child born at a time when there is a lot of meat, perhaps when an animal has been slaughtered in the home, is named Wanyama (boy) or Nanyama (girl); a child born during an occasion that involves partaking of alcohol is named Wamalwa (boy) or Namalwa (girl); and one born on the wayside, while the mother is on a journey or on the way to hospital, is named Wangila (boy) or Nangila (girl). Within the Luhyia community, still, twins have their own special names that are unisex. Whether a boy or a girl, the first twin is named Mukhwana while the second twin is named Mulongo. The follower of twins is named Khisa and Khisa’s follower is named Khamala. Khamala’s follower is named Nabangi, implying ‘one who comes after many,’ or ‘the follower of many’.

Girl names like Nabangala and Nang’unda and boy names like Makokha, Mwangale and Wepukhulu have special significance among the Luhyia. These names are given to children who come after several miscarriages or death at infancy of several live births. When a child is born after these misfortunes, a ritual is performed: the baby is wrapped up well and a show of throwing it away is made. A pre-arranged ‘stranger’ ‘discovers’ the ‘thrown away’ baby and brings it back to the mother. Such a baby is normally referred to as ‘omuboelela’, literally meaning ‘one who was wrapped up’ and, if it is a girl, is named Nabangala (one who was discovered and picked up) or Nang’unda (of dirt). If a boy, the baby is given the name Mwangale (same meaning as Nabangala), or Makokha (of ashes), or Wepukhulu (of dust). The act of naming children after ashes, dust and dirt in this manner is supposedly meant to make them unattractive to the spirit of death and thus allow them to survive.

The Luo community, the third largest ethnic group in Kenya, also practices naming along similar lines as the Luhyia community where time, event, and circumstance surrounding birth dictate the naming and names of children. A child born to a Luo family at night is named Otieno (boy) or Atieno (girl); one born when it is raining is named Okoth (boy) or Akoth (girl); a child born in the early morning is named Okinyi (boy) or Akinyi (girl). Onyango (boy) or Anyango (girl) is a name given to a Luo child born between midmorning and noon while a child born when the sun is hot is named Ochieng’ (boy) or Achieng’ (girl). A child born during a locust infestation is named Obonyo (boy) or Abonyo (girl). A child born during a funeral is named Oburu (boy) or Aburu (girl). Odero (boy) or Adero (girl) is born during a period of abundance while one born during a famine is named Okech (boy) or Akech (girl). A child born during the weeding season is named Odoyo (boy) or Adoyo (girl) while one born at harvest time is named Okeyo (boy) or Akeyo (girl). A child born during a celebration where alcohol is in plenty is named Okong’o (boy) or Akong’o (girl). Just like the Luhyia community, the Luo also have special names for twins. The first of twins is named Opiyo (boy) or Apiyo (girl) with the second getting the name Odongo (boy) or Adongo (girl). The follower of twins is named Okelo (boy) or Akelo (girl).

The Kikuyu, the second largest ethnic group in Kenya after the Luhyia, observe a unique pattern of naming their offspring. The family identity is carried on in each generation by naming children after their grandparents and siblings of their parents in the following pattern: the first son is named after his paternal grandfather (the father’s father), the second son is named after his maternal grandfather (the mother’s father). The first daughter is named after her paternal grandmother (the father’s mother), the second daughter is named after her maternal grandmother (the mother’s mother). The third son is named after the father’s oldest male sibling (paternal uncle) and the fourth son after the mother’s oldest male sibling (maternal uncle). Similarly, the third daughter is named after the father’s oldest sister (paternal aunt) and the fourth daughter is named after the mother’s oldest sister (maternal aunt). The pattern continues in this back and forth manner. In this naming system, the child is given the middle name of the appropriate relative (see Cagnolo and Wambugu 2006; Lambert 2018).

According to the Kikuyu myth of origin, all creation started at Mukuru wa Nyagathanga, around Mt. Kenya, where Gikuyu and Mumbi, the eponymous founders of the Kikuyu, gave birth to nine daughters named Wanjiku, Wanjiru, Wanjeri (Wacera), Wangui, Wambui, Wangari, Waithera, Wairimu, and Nyambura. Traditionally, these are the names that are given to girls in this community. Nevertheless, the repertoire of female names expanded among the Kikuyu due to intermarriage and adoption of nicknames into the mainstream. All these names have cultural significance, as the following examples illustrate:

Mukami (the one who milks the cows)

Wairimu (of the ogre)

Mumbi (the potter and mother of the Kikuyu)

Wambui (of the zebra)

Muthoni (the in-law)

Wangari (of the leopard)

Njoki (the resurrected one)

Wanjiru (the dark one)

Nyambura (of the rain)

Waceke (the slim one)

Nyokabi (the one from Maasai)

Wanja (the one from outside)

Nyawira (the hardworking one)

Warigia (the last one)

Similarly, in the olden days, Kikuyu male children were given names of their riika— the circumcision group—into which they were initiated. Names such as Gitau (1847 riika), Kamande (1902 riika), Kamau (1845 riika), Karanja (1852 riika), Kinuthia (1851 riika), Ndirangu (1862 riika), Ng’ang’a (1862 riika), Njoroge (1858 riika), Njuguna (1853 riika), Wainaina (1861 riika), Ngugi (1876 riika), and Koinange (1879 riika) are examples. Other Kikuyu male names began as nicknames and were subsequently mainstreamed with the approval of those who were first so nicknamed. All these names have some cultural significance, as the following examples illustrate:

Gichohi (big beer)

Mugo (the diviner priest)

Gichuki (big bee)

Muraya (the tall one)

Gichuru (big porridge)

Muriithi (the herdsman)

Gikonyo (big belly button)

Mathenge (of he-goat)

Githinji (slaughterer of goats/cows)

Macharia (one who searches)

Gitonga (the rich one)

Muriuki (one who resurrected)

Kairu (small black one)

Murungaru (the upright one)

Kamotho (small left-handed)

Mutegi (the trapper of animals)

Karimi (the small farmer)

Mwaniki (beekeeper/one who hangs hives on trees)

Kibaki (big tobacco leaf)

Muthui (the honey tapper)

Kimunya (one who uproots plants)

Ndegwa (the bull)

Ngari (the leopard)

Warui (of the river)

The Kikuyu names Njoki, Kariuki and Muchoki are equivalents of the Luhyia names Nang’unda, Nabangala, Mwangale, Wepukhulu, and Makokha. They are given to children who come after ones that die soon after birth. The names literally mean ‘the reincarnated one,’ ‘the resurrected one,’ or ‘the one who returns’. The fact that Kariuki is a very common Kikuyu name may signify the high infant mortality rate within this community, at least at some point in the historical past. A notable characteristic feature of Kikuyu names is their penchant for the diminutive and augmentative forms. Examples include Kamotho (diminutive – little left-handed one) vs. Kimotho (augmentative – big left-handed one), Karimi (diminutive – farmer) vs. Kirimi (augmentative), Gituku (diminutive – darkness) vs. Gatuku (augmentative), Kihiu (diminutive – knife) vs. Kahiu (augmentative) and Kihara (diminutive – bald-headed) vs. Kahara (augmentative). This may signify the community’s overall tendency to amplify and denigrate their referents; for instance, talking about people in terms of ‘kimundu’ (huge person) and ‘kamundu’ (little person), often with derogatory implications.

Arguably, therefore, among the Kikuyu community, no one actually dies. Everyone gets to be reborn or reincarnated in their nephews, nieces and grandchildren. Overall, as the foregoing discussion amply illustrates, anthroponyms (names of persons) carry profound cultural significance. They not only signify identity at a personal level, they also cement one’s belonging to an ethnic community. By performing this function, anthroponyms provide the basis for the creation of the binaries of ‘us’ verses ‘them’ that is so central to the politics of inclusion and exclusion across the world. With specific reference to Kenya and as demonstrated above, anthroponyms actually tell a story of the circumstances surrounding one’s birth as well as that of one’s family lineage in the case of the Kikuyu.

The Politics of Naming Spaces

Lawrence Berg (1996) rightly notes that the process of naming places involves a contested identity politics of people and place. Place-names, Berg writes, are part of the social construction of space and the symbolic construction of meanings about place. Consequently, therefore, the names applied to places and spaces have implications on the construction of the symbolic and material orders that legitimate the dominance of a specific hegemonic group at particular historical moments. The names of African countries, for instance, as well as many spaces and places within them were given by European colonialists. For example, Cameroon is said to owe its name to a Portuguese traveller who came across the country’s largest river, Wouri, that was full of shrimp, and named it Rio dos Camarões, which means ‘river of shrimp’. The name stuck and evolved to become the country’s name. Another 15th century Portuguese explorer travelled further west, coming across mountains that looked like a lion’s teeth coupled with an impressive roar of thunderstorms that led him to name the place ‘Sierra Lyoa’ (lion mountains), hence the eventual name of Sierra Leone. Similarly, Kenya has its origin in the British mispronunciation of the Kikuyu word for what would become known as Mount Kenya, ‘Kirinyaga’, which means ‘where God dwells’. Lagos, one of the largest cities in the world, means ‘lakes’ in Portuguese, a reference to the islands in the lagoon upon which the Nigerian city is built. Nigeria, a former British colony, and Niger, a former French colony, were named after River Niger (Kimeria 2019).

After attainment of independence, African states embarked on some measure of decolonisation of place names as a means of creating a new national identity and underscoring the ethos of the new nation-in-the-making. This process of Africanisation was critically represented in the renaming of spaces previously named to signify the colonial state’s allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom. In Besi Muhonja’s (2016:172) view, this was a process of toponymic cleansing through the symbolic transformation of the urban landscape. The purpose, in the case of renaming Nairobi city’s spaces, was to create a new city canvas upon which is inscribed names, structures and images that embody the envisioned image of a new city or nation as well as segments of history deemed desirable for preservation and expected to serve as a tool for nationalising. It is on account of this that some city streets were renamed as follows:

However, if this renaming of Nairobi streets was an act of historical archiving and re-envisioning of a new city and a new Kenya, how representative was it? Nairobi is the capital city and, therefore, a microcosm of the nation-in-the-making. To what extent is its toponymic canvas an accurate and fair record of the country’s history representative of all its peoples and their heroes? In this regard, Besi Muhonja (2016:173) argues that one way women have been written out of Kenyan history is in their erasure from spaces that memorialise heroic historical figures: “If these heroes represent the nation’s pride as well as its aspirations, and are markers of the nation’s historical panorama, then where are the women that have been a part of that history?” Despite there being numerous heroines in the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods in Kenya, none of them was memorialised in the renaming of the above Nairobi streets. Mama Ngina got her name on the street not by dint of any heroic accomplishments but by the mere fact of being the wife of the founding president. It was only recently that Forest Road was renamed after Greenbelt Movement founder and Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai.

Naming, as Muhonja rightly points out, is a powerful indicator and creator of identity and social stratification, as well as location of bodies in a society. Hence the act and the resulting symbolism of the naming of Kenyan landmarks is instructive of the hierarchies of power, patriarchy and ethnicity inherent in the Kenyan body politic. For instance, of the sixty streets named after individuals in Nairobi, only two (3.3 per cent) are named after women and, of these, one is named for the heroism of the woman in her own right, while the other is named for the woman’s marital association with a male hero. Similarly, of the sixty streets named after individuals, twenty-six of them (43.3 per cent) are named after individuals from the Kikuyu community while twelve (20 per cent) are named after foreigners. This leaves only twenty-two (36.6 per cent) streets named after individuals from the other fortyone (97.6 per cent) ethnic communities in Kenya! These examples are illustrative of the gendered and ethnic nature of power in the country. Indeed, of the street names under discussion, no less than five are named after founding president Jomo Kenyatta’s family and relatives by marriage. These include Kenyatta Avenue, Mama Ngina Street, Muigai Kenyatta Road, Koinange Street, and Muhoho Avenue. Both Koinange wa Mbiyu and Muhoho wa Gathecha were colonial chiefs. That their names are immortalised in two Nairobi street names is a function of the fact that they were both fathers-in-law to Jomo Kenyatta. Koinange was the father of Kenyatta’s third wife, Grace Wanjiku, while Muhoho was the father of Mama Ngina, Kenyatta’s fourth wife and Uhuru’s mother.

Particularly illustrative of the power inherent in toponyms (names of places) is the domination of a few political names on the country’s most prominent monuments. We have the Kenyatta National Referral and Teaching Hospital, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Kenyatta University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and even Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library at the University of Nairobi. Similarly, we have Moi University (Eldoret), Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (Eldoret), Moi International Airport (Mombasa), Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani (Nairobi) and a host of schools named after Kenya’s second president. It is only former president Mwai Kibaki who broke with this penchant for presidents immortalising their names on monumental structures. Perhaps by the time he assumed power in late 2002, there was nothing much remaining worthy emblazoning his name on.

Conclusion: Toponyms from Below?

Although the most symbolic monuments in Kenya are named in honour of a few male political figures by the powers-that-be, some places acquired their names by dint of mispronunciation or corruption of English names by the local communities in these spaces. For instance, in Trans Nzoia County, there is a town known as Endebess, 20 kilometres to the northwest of Kitale. Its name is derived from ‘End of Base’. It was the last colonial post before the Uganda border and was thus popularly referred to as ‘end of base’, which the locals conveniently pronounced ‘Endebess’. And the name stuck. Similarly, in the early 1930s, gold was discovered in Kakamega and many people flocked to the emerging goldmines there in search of fortunes. The place acquired its current name ‘Ikolomani’, a corruption of ‘goldmine’ by the local Idakho community. The same goes for Rodi Kopany, a town along the Homa Bay-Rongo Road in Homa Bay County, whose name is a corruption of ‘road company’, derived from Mehta Singh Road Company that pitched camp at the place and was the pioneer tarmac road constructor in South Nyanza. In Meru, the place name Kambakia is also said to have been derived from the English words ‘come back here’, a constant refrain by colonial administrators who constantly told those seeking government services of one kind or another to go do such and such then ‘come back here’.

Arguably, therefore, the subaltern classes have had their own imprint on the toponyms of spaces in many parts of the country, even as the political elite have monopolised the naming of major monuments and urban spaces after themselves. The most significant question, at the end of the day, is why the process of re-Africanisation of colonial toponyms remains an unfinished agenda almost sixty years since independence. Lake Rudolph was renamed Lake Turkana while Port Florence became Kisumu. Why is Africa’s largest lake, and the second largest fresh water lake in the world after Lake Superior in north America, still called Lake Victoria? Is it proper that this African landmark still bears the name of the British monarch, Queen Alexandrina Victoria, given to it by the explorer John Speke back in 1858?

References

Berg, Lawrence D. “Naming as Norming: ‘Race’, Gender, and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aotearoa/New Zealand.” Society and Space, 14(1), 1996:99—122.

Borkfelt, Sune. “What’s in a Name?—Consequences of Naming Non-Human Animals.” Animals, 1(1), 2011:116-125.

Cagnolo, C. and H. Wambugu. The Agikuyu: Their Customs, Traditions & Folklore. Nyeri, Kenya: Wisdom Graphics, 2006.

Helleland, Botolv. “The Social and Cultural Value of Place Names.” Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, Berlin, 27 August—5 September 2002.

Kimeria, Ciku. “The most unusual ways many African countries got their names.” Quartz Africa: qz.com/Africa, October 16, 2019.

Lambert, H.E. Kikuyu Social and Political Institutions. London: Routledge, 2018.

Lynch, Gabrielle. “What’s in a name? The politics of naming ethnic groups in Kenya’s Cherangany Hills.” Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(1), 2016: 208—227.

Mugo, E. Kikuyu People: A Brief Outline of their Customs and Traditions. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1982.

Muhonja, Besi Brillian. “Gender, Archiving, and Recognition: Naming and Erasing in Nairobi’s Cityspace,” in Mickie Koster, Michael Kithinji, and Jerono Rotich, eds. Kenya after Fifty: Reconfiguring Education, Gender, and Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016:171—195.

Okello, Belindah. “What’s in a name? Reinventing Luo naming system in Kenya’s ethnopolitical landscape.” African Identities, DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2020.1791687, 2020.

Olende, Jaramogi. “The Naming System of the Luo of Kenya,” Personal Interview, Memphis, Tennessee, August 30, 2020.

Parkin, David. “The Politics of Naming Among Giriama.” The Sociological Review, 36(1), 1998:61—89.

Popova, Maria. “How Naming Confers Dignity upon Life and Gives Meaning to Existence.” Brain pickings, 2015: https://www.brainpickings. org/2015/07/23/robin-wall-kimmerer-gathering-moss-naming/

* Wanjala Nasong’o is a Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, United States (nasongos@rhodes.edu).

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Find essays in Part I of the collection here. You may download the inaugural special issue of The Nairobi Reader. Tomorrow, find out the nexus between African names and black consciousness.

To join the discourse on the cultural significance of names and the politics of naming, share your comments below or write to editor@nairobibookshelf.com.