Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Igbo-English names

Since you guys seemed to be so tickled by my first crush's name - Barnabas (trust me, you were not the only ones), I hearby present to you other Igbo-English names i have encountered over the years. Sugabelly, abeg no vex. I know u r the igbo advocate on blogsville, but you know i'm speaking the truth on this one. Igbo people have a penchant for naming their kids some funny, funny names like
  • Polycarp
  • Ignatius (usually called ignay)
  • Romanus
  • Donatus or Dona!
  • Linus
  • Camillus
  • Boniface
  • Mattias
  • Cletus
  • Magnus
  • Aloysius fondly called Aloy
  • Amaryllis
  • Philo
  • Apollonus
  • Festus
  • Justus
  • Bartholomew (Bartho!)
  • Vitalis
There are many more that i can't think of right now. Feel free to add yours.

P.S. Raise your hand if you used to consider "Angelina" a razz name before you knew Angeline Jolie. My hands (both) are raised way high.

22 comments:

  1. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

    infact sef ehn, the pronunciation is begging to be igbo.

    who sent them to put in "ona" in them or the "us" at the end. C'mon Donatus??? is that a real name today?

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  2. Lmao @ angelina! yup both hands raised too. ange for short. lol

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  3. I think the reason for this is that an interesting percentage of Igbos are catholics and at Catechism, usually give their kids Roman names and names belonging to saints.

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  4. lolll I have an uncle name Fetus, Boniface, Apollus. lollll i also have a baby cousin in Nigeria whose name is Liftupjesus NO LIE! I promise LOLLL. He was going by LiftUp last time I visited. There was also another older igbo girl in college in my biology classes whose name was "Bountiful", all my stupid classmates would always laugh and ask me stupid questions about her name.

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  5. hahaha i cnt even laugh!..y'all shld free us joor,lol
    had an igbo friend in high schl called scholastica. loool! these names are killing me sha

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  6. Lol @ Ifunanya...

    my dad is hyacinth and i went to school with a guy called sixtus....i wont tell u my sis name or mine either-hilarious. i be igbo gal!

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  7. :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

    nope! i neva angelina was a razz name oo..i do shorten it to angel.. shikenna!

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  8. looool. What of Jovita? I know a couple that named their set of twins 'Halleluyah ' and 'Hossanah', as in for real. Yoruba people are now fond of naming their children long names, which my pose a problem when they are filling WAEC and JAMB forms in future like , 'Oluwasekefunmitan', 'Opemipolodooluwa', 'Oluwaremilekuntitilailai', 'Titilailailayomi', etc.

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  9. Naked Sha, thank you. I was going to say that.

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  10. @Natural Nigerian: I'm aware of that fact and not disputing it at all but still......the names they chose are funny. There are millions of Catholics all over the world, you have to admit that this is peculiar to Igbo catholics (at least in my frame of reference which is Nigeria).

    I'm not hating on Igbo people, my mom happens to be Igbo. I'm just pointing something out.

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  11. You forgot Sylvanus...lol...


    Nice one

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  12. I have a friend called 'GodBoost' lol.... Romanus is my favorite,
    R for Romanus,
    O for Omanus,
    M for Manus,
    A for ....
    S for ssss
    lmao

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  13. Calestus! not sure I spelled it right, but I'm like......wth?

    Psst...somehow I consider Kingsley to be an igborized name.

    b.t.w I'm Igbo...so no hating. It's just how we are.

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  14. Hahahahaha @ Polycarp... so that's someone's name.... This was funny.

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  15. I have a friend by name Perpetual.
    and back in high school, people made fun of the name, like calling her Perpetually Late, perpetually making noise and all

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  16. hahahahah..... True story mehnn.. ANGELINA used to sound razz. lol... I guess it might be the way we are used to pronouncing things in 9ja. buahahah.

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  17. I think these are catholic names. I grew up in Enugu and so many of these names were flying around, lol. Worse than the names were the pronunciations, LWKMD...

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  18. My husband is Yoruba, from a Catholic family. His first name is one of the ones listed above. I think it rawks. No, I won't tell you which :)

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  19. For me it's Angelica that has an always be razz, i'm sorry.
    I don't know what it is with Igbo people and these englIgbo names.

    I had a relative i'd always known as Nda Elephinda, only for me to grow up & realise her name is actually Elfreda.
    I have an Uncle Ignay, Aunty Philo,
    Uncle Dona, Uncly Adol (Adolphus)
    but the funniest one i have is uncle VINATUS! Seriously what were those parents thinking???

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  20. Funny post. laughing seriously here. I'm so feeling Mizchif. I have maternal kin with those names. Nda Dona (short for Donatus) etc etc.

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