Names Have Purpose

What’s In a Name?

I read a fascinating piece in The New York Times about names. The current writer of Dear Abby’s column, Jeanne Phillips, advised parents to avoid unusual names for their children.

They should use names that are easy to pronounce and “won’t invite teasing, she said.

Several parents were very unhappy with this advice. What she actually meant, they said, was a name that is easily identified as “white.”

One person said, “The ‘unusual’ names referred to in the Dear Abby column aren’t unique in their complexity. They just tend to come from places where people aren’t white.”

Valarie Kaur is an author and activist. She is “a third-generation Sikh from California. She named her son Kavi, which means poet, because two of his great-grandfathers were poets.” Now she’s considering a name for her daughter due in a month.

” ‘Abby’s column was deeply infuriating and also revelatory,’ Ms. Kaur said. ‘Abby is clinging to an old America, where white is considered the norm and everything else deviant and inferior.’ Ms. Kaur added that she and her partner believed it was more important for a child’s name to connect them to their heritage than for it to be easy to pronounce.” I agree with her.

Our Children and Their Names

Our first son has the name Chinakueze, which means God is the one who creates kings. We’re always shortened it to Chinaku, and he has more recently made it even shorter by using China, pronounced like the country. Our other two children were given Igbo middle names, but we’ve used their more “usual” first names, Beth and Sam.

Clem’s father, whom I always called Papa, gave all our children their Igbo names. Our daughter Beth has the lovely middle name “Ijeoma,” which means “go safely.” It was completely appropriate because she was born soon after we had fled from Lagos to eastern Nigeria as the Biafran War was starting.

But I insisted on giving her the first name Elizabeth, after my sister. We were in Clem’s village for most of the first year of her life. I persuaded everyone to use the name Beth, even though it was difficult for many Igbo people to pronounce. There is no “th” in Igbo. So the name often ended up as Bet or Betty.

We named our third child Samuel for Clem’s father. It’s not common among the Igbo to name a child for a living relative. But Papa was pleased that we were using it. The Igbo name he gave Sam is Chukwugekwu, which means God will speak.

Comment from Canada on a Name 

As I was reading the article I wasn’t surprised to find this comment from an Igbo man who lives in Canada. But I was surprised by what he said about his father.

“Mr. Awgu, whose father is from the former Biafra and whose mother is from Antigua, said that while his given first name was Ikechukwu . . . he goes by ‘Ike’ because it is easier for Canadians to understand.”

Usually someone will say “from Nigeria” instead of “from the former Biafra.” There must be many people alive today who have no idea where Biafra was or what happened to it.

And I was also curious about how he uses the nickname “Ike.” The first two syllables of his name Ikechukwu are pronounced e-k, just like the names of the letters. So does he use that pronunciation, or does he say “Ike,” like the former US president?

Purple Hibiscus, Trace Nigeria, and Sam

I often quote the blog Brittle Paper. I loved this piece about the anniversary of Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus. You may not want to read all the praise for the novel that came over the years after it was published. But do read the end!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Turns 15: The Best Moments of a Modern Classic

The article concludes by saying that the Farafina Writing Workshop, founded and run by Adichie, did not take place last year for lack of a sponsor.

“This year, the workshop returned rebranded: the Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop sponsored by multi-platform media and entertainment company Trace Nigeria.”

Trace Nigeria? “Sam Onyemelukwe, Managing Director of Venator Partners/Trace Nigeria, stated: ‘We are very pleased to partner with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is an inspiration to youth in Africa and around the world; and through her art, she not only entertains but challenges stereotypes and kindles conversations that would often otherwise not be had.’ ”

Adchie is quoted in the article: “The workshop, which is currently in its 11th year, will continue to provide me the opportunity to contribute to the growth of the writing community in Nigeria. It will also serve as a platform for writers to learn from one another and from established writers.”

Seeing this piece about the novel Purple Hibiscus has given me an idea for a new course at Lifetime Learners, the education program for adults over age 50 at Norwalk Community College.

I think I will propose a class comparing and contrasting two Nigerian novels – Purple Hibiscus and either Arrow of God, or No Longer At Ease, two of Chinua Achebe’s novels.

Adichie wrote the introduction to the trilogy, published in 2010, of Achebe’s three major works, the two I named and of course his most famous, Things Fall Apart. Achebe praised Adichie’s writing on reading her second novel, calling her a “new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers!”

Is this a good idea? I need to get the proposal in by Monday, so let me know right away.