Jonathan in Fall River, Wisconsin, says when he worked in Zambia he met many people named Bornface, supposedly because they were born face-up. In The African Book of Names, Ashkari Johnson Hodari explains that it’s common throughout sub-Saharan Africa to name individuals with reference to conditions or events happening at the time of their birth, such as a wedding, a period of grief, conflict with another group, the baby’s birthing position, and other things. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Given Name “Bornface””
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jonathan.
Hi, Jonathan. Welcome to the show.
Where are you calling from?
I’m from Fall River, Wisconsin.
All right. Well, what can we do for you, Jonathan?
In 2001-2002, I was a student missionary for a year in Zambia, Africa. And while I was there, I met a lot of people who had the name Bornface. And the explanation given to me by the local people was that they were all born face up. Of course, that’s like a lot of people who are born face up. So both girls and boys can have this name. And there were quite a few of them in Zambia at the time.
Now I’m a pastor in Wisconsin. And one of my church members is from Zambia. And he said that his name is the same, but he really clearly says that his name is Bondface as opposed to Bornface. And so all those other names that you were hearing when you were in Zambia in 2000, 2001, they were clearly pronouncing that R, right?
Yeah, and giving this explanation.
Right, yes. And they were all English speakers.
Well, English is a second language. Or it’s a British colony. North and South Rhodesia were, but… Former British, yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, the language of trade, usually their first language is their tribal language that they learned growing up.
Right.
And then the English is the one you work in and go to school with, right?
Right.
Correct.
So they’re both correct. Really, you’re just hearing that lack of R, which is common to the British, former British Empire. The interesting thing to me is I wonder if you as an American were hearing the R in Bourneface or they were over articulating so that you could hear it or that you were just encountering people who had more experience with American English rather than British English. But I could see either one of those taking place there.
I mean, there’s a lot of missionary presence in Zambia, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So that you might simply just be hearing people with their English was reinforced in different ways by two different English speaking cultures, American or British. But I want to talk about the larger question, which people might be thinking right now, which is, why would somebody name their child after the position of the birth? Do you have an answer for that?
I have no clue. And it kind of struck me as funny because, you know, that’s like probably one third of the population or more. So, you know, everyone could have this name. It might be more than that.
So I’ve done a little reading on the subject. And there’s an author named Shikari Johnson Hodari who’s got a book called The African Book of Names. It’s good. It’s basically a name book. Pick names out for your kids with some explanation. But one of these things that he says, what I really found significant, is that throughout sub-Saharan Africa, names tend to explain the circumstances exactly as they were at the time of a birth. So it might be born at the time of a wedding, born during a time of grief, born during a conflict with another group, born after the father has died. And sometimes the names can reflect the birth itself, being born as a twin, coming too soon after the last birth or being a breech birth or being born face downward. So all of these, and they’re different, and this happens in Nigeria and Ghana and other places in sub-Saharan Africa.
So there’s a lot of names in the tribal or regional languages that literally mean these things like born face downward or second twin. And sometimes children get a new, not quite a name, but more like an honorific after another child is born and they’re now the older child and they’ll get a new name. So anyway, it’s not something that we do in the naming culture of the West. Our names tend to be more abstract and less specific and less reflective of the actual literal circumstances of birth.
Yeah, I love that these are names that tell a story. So one thing that struck me as quite funny when I was in Zambia was that people often name their children after whoever happens to be in the newspaper that day. So you get a lot of people named after famous Americans or world leaders from Europe or different things like this.
Yeah, it’s true. I’ve seen news stories. Occasionally I’ll browse the African news just to see what’s happening in the world. And there’s all these Bill Clintons who now have grandkids. I love it. It’s fantastic.
In any case, there’s more to be learned about this if you want to look up African naming traditions. Really interesting stuff here. They go a different direction. It’s their own thing. And to us, it might seem odd at first, but it starts to make a lot of sense when you think about it.
So that book was The African Book of Names by Ashkari Johnson Hodari. And I highly recommend that as a place to start.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your call.
Jonathan, thanks for calling. Call us again sometime, Jonathan. Take care now.
Bye.
Bye.
I’m sure that some people are wondering about the name Boniface, you know, in the Catholic tradition, but that’s a whole other etymology.
That’s right. It’s just a coincidence that Boniface and Boniface look similar and sound similar, but they’re not related. It’s not the name that’s being used in Africa. In Latin, bonum fatum, which means good fate.
