RWANDAN names

Context

On today's hike, I met KAMAU, a mechanical engineer at Ampersand, and we instantly began nerding out about the tech ecosystem in both our countries (mine, RWANDA, and his, KENYA). We had a pleasant chat, but he pointed out something interesting to me when we were sharing contacts, that I had the urge to write it down, and what it ended up being.

I have a habit of listing down all the names of a person in my contact list. I've received some criticism from a few friends for this supposedly tedious task, but I don't see myself changing that habit soon. Anywho, as I was saving Robert's names in my phone, he was surprised to notice that I always place the surname first, in uppercase, then given names last, capitalized. His remark was, "I like the way you write surnames - in all caps."
"Wait, this isn't the case for all African cultures?", I asked myself.

The Different Naming Customs

I didn't do a deep dive into the different structures/methods of naming, but here is a summary of naming customs I got from this nice article: How do naming customs vary around the world?

Sadly, though this article says "around the world" in its title, it only covers non-African countries. If you do have some great resources where I could learn on the different African naming customs, please let me know.

Our Way; The RWANDAN Way

From that list, the only country whose customs seem to overlap with RWANDA's, is Japan.
i.e. Surname first, followed by given names. And like Japan, it is quite rare to find a person with a middle name. Although, as of my generation, I'm noticing more and more people with one - myself included.

The Old Way

By old, I mean pre-colonial times. i.e. pre-19^th century

The old way was very different from what you'll see today - and they were very strict with names. Here's how:

You Shall Possess Only One Name

In the olden days, a person could only have one name - that's it. For unique identification, Rwandans expressing each other in stories or 3^rd person added the name of your father in the same breath. e.g.

• SHYAKA wa RUTIKANGA literally meaning, SHYAKA of RUTIKANGA
• BUTARE bwa NTURO
• MUGOBE wa NGWIJE
• RUKARA rwa BISHINGWE

I don't know the English technical/grammatical term for this, but wa, bwa, cya, rwa, ka... are variations of, well, of used depending on what we call inteko of the name.

The only exception to this rule, were kings and queens.
The reason for the rule, I can only guess. But the reason for the exception, was that kingship titles were meticulously specific and purposeful (Maybe I'll write a post about this in the future).

Let's take two kings as case studies:

• umwami MUTARA II Rwogera
• umwami KIGELI IV Rwabugiri

Technically speaking, MUTARA II Rwogera was born only "Rwogera". It wasn't until he ascended the crane throne that he was given MUTARA, and being the second one to bear that title, II founds its way into his names.

The II part is only retrospective and no one actually referred to him as MUTARA "the second" Rwogera in his lifetime - only MUTARA Rwogera

You Shall Not Have The Name Of Another

This wasn't a rule, but believe it or not, it's uncommon for two or more people to share the same name in RWANDA - at least it was. The reason for this is simple; most RWANDAN names are derived from "expressions" of the natural way of life (war, blessings, curses, warnings, intent, outcomes...), or just plain verbs. There are too many variations for collisions to be more probable than not. I really don't know how to express this in technical/grammatical terms (I'm no linguist, after all) but ask for amazina y'imegenurano if you ever get the chance.

But here is a fun fact for you;

Wikipedia gets it wrong (I know, and yes, they are wrong), but KIGELI IV Rwabugiri was actually born Sezisoni, only. After attaining the renown he craved, he wanted a name that was literally the embodiment of his ambition and might. Then came the name Rwabugiri. There were only two men in his kingdom who had that name, and by decree, he stripped them of that name, and only reserved it for himself. (No man would bear the same name as a king; such was the law)

Your Father's Name Is Not Your Name

In the olden times, no one took the name of their father - not even kings. Have a look at the aforementioned names. Rwabugiri, though a prince, had no right to take his father's name, nor the grounds to bear it.

From my (and I believe others) point of view, it is very absurd for a child to bear the name of their father. It's his name, after all. Why, then, must a child inherit a name when they could never inherit the honour that it bore when it belonged to another.

Okay I just expressed this is in a pretentious way; let's try again.

Niba izina ari irye, akaba yaragize ibigwi agera ho ubwe, kuki ushaka kubyiyitirira? Wafashe izina wahawe, ukazagira ibyo ugeraho ku giti cyawe, bikazakwitirirwa?

A long time ago, these were the words my mother once told me when she heard me trying to call myself the name of my grandfather. Google can't translate Kinyarwanda well, and it's hard for me to accurately express this, but it's something like:

If the name is his, and it has his attributions, why do you want to claim it for yourself? Take the name you were offered, and whatever you achieve yourself, will be attributed to your name, not another's.

The New Way

Yeah, we don't care that much about customs any more. We just mix and match until the expression of self in names is, ironically, trite.

I wish I was joking, but the truth is stranger than fiction. Post-colonial customs are bizarre, but there are some which are being upheld, while others evolved. After all, one can't stop culture from evolving.

Like today, although we now bear more than one name, we at least refer to our surnames as our true names, and the rest are just other names. In that regard, when writing our true names, we write them in uppercase, and they must always come before the rest, not after.

That's how much names are valued in our society.

Here are a few proverbs to demonstrate: