Superb Zambian Names!

We've recently come to the end of two weeks of back to back teams. 34 visitors coming to help with the administration of the child sponsorship program we run. Approximately 850 children weighed and measured, photos updated and interviews conducted with their carers. It's a full on time of year, and as you can imagine, there are significant preparations to be ready for it all, as well as lots of follow up work.

One of the joys found amid the busyness is looking through the registers and reading through the names of the children at our partner schools. Many Zambians have superb names!*

Names tend to fall under a few different categories:

Traditional - some are easier to read than others, lots have great meanings. Some of my favourites include Bwalya, Nkondwe, Mapalo

Tributes - named after someone famous. Many of these are biblical, some are political and a few are just odd!
Some examples of this; Elvis, Ringo, Obama, Hitler (yes, Hitler!?)

Aspirational - the parents want certain qualities to be bestowed upon their child and therefore name them accordingly.
Some examples of this; Beauty, Hero, Unique, Funny, Genius, Soldier, Saviour, Happy and Marvellous are among my favourites.

Anecdotal - my favourite category as every name is accompanied by a good story of explanation. These are children who have been named because of circumstances surrounding their birth.
Medium: he wasn't too big; he wasn't too small
Event: he may have been too big
Goliath: he definitely was too big
Imbasella: this is taken from a Bemba phrase meaning buy one, get one free. He was the younger of twin boys. Classic!

Other - and then there's 'other'. Names given because it was the first thing a parent saw after giving birth, or simply because they liked the sound of it.
Names like Tinkler, Field, Diesel, Organ, Frenzy…

I heard a 'fact' recently that Denmark has a list of 7,000 pre-approved names from which they can choose, as names were just getting 'out of hand'. I can't see that law ever being enforced here in Zambia. Yes, maybe it would stop people from inadvertently naming their children Hitler, but we'd also be unlikely to see the likes of Hero, Unique and Tinkler on our registers, which would be a real shame :-)

(* and some probably have the name Superb!)