Jealous, Soda, Anyway: How Zimbabwe got its 'English' naming tradition

Many would have questioned how sane parents would have given their son such a name.

Zimbabwe’s Minister of Agriculture has the quaint first name of Anxious; the mines minister is named Soda; a former deputy minister is called Kindness; and one of our top golfers is named Anyway Watch. Our best business journalist is named Shame, and so forth.

During Zimbabwe’s colonial period (1890-1980) when the District Commissioner (DC) held full sway over the indigenous people and was responsible for their registration, he found most of the “native” names too complicated to pronounce, let alone spell. So he would sit with a native assistant who would explain the meanings of the names and the DC would crudely and often very cynically summarise the explanation in one word and it became the poor soul’s lifelong label.

On realising that the people named their children after events that had occurred in their families, the DC began to name the kids after these events. He would ask: “What had happened when this boy was born?”

His assistant would ask the parents in their language and the parents would explain. “We had gone to watch the bioscope at the school when she went into labour.” So the child became “Bioscope” which they pronounced “Bhaisikopo”. One child was recorded as “Paraffin” because his father sold kerosene at the shops.

But often, the DC didn’t bother asking any such questions; he simply conjured up the names from the way the poor boy looked. “His head is like a box of matches.” And his name was rendered as Matches. Our most popular musician at the moment is named Macheso, a derivative of “matches”. Soda Zhou got his name “because he looked like a bottle of Coca-Cola”.

Even if the DC meant to humiliate and dehumanise the Zimbabwean people by these names, it, unfortunately, became a tradition among the populace that has stuck up to today.

Instead of having the DC do the translations for them, they just gave their children “English” names at birth. If the pregnancy had worrisome moments, the child was named Anxious. Shame was too cute a baby at birth that whoever was told it was a boy not a girl just said, “Shame”; and it became the poor boy’s name.

If the paternity of the child was not certain, the boy was named Doubt. There are many Doubts floating around in Zimbabwe. Jealous was likely named due to the relationship between a senior wife and a junior wife in a polygamous union.

But there are some crude moments: “Doubt was Anxious to beat Anyway in a round of golf but Shame won.”

Asked how they feel about the names, most of the carriers would just shrug and say, “That’s the way it is.”

My dad presented me to the DC and dutifully translated my name. “We can’t have that,” the DC responded haughtily. “There is only one royal family in the British Commonwealth. Spell his native name.”

“N-E-V-A-N-J-I”.

It means PRINCE.