Let’s keep our own African names

By Br Simeon Banda FSM

I was baptised in Chiphaso parish in Kasungu in the diocese of Lilongwe, Malawi. The parish is run by Carmelite Fathers. As a young man I almost joined their order, but because all were foreigners, I thought blacks would not be accepted.

But what prompts me to write this article is the issue of baptismal names. In the New Testament, Saul became Paul, and Simon was renamed Peter.

In my culture, we name children based on a life event. For example, when a mother has had children dying, the family might name a child Maliro, which means death. The name is a cry for God’s mercy to spare the child. Chifundo means mercy, Mavuto means problems. The infant names are meant to change when a person becomes an adult, and a new-born child can be given a discarded name. My nephew named his son by my infant name.

When I became an adult, I had to change my name, so I became Simeon. The list we were given to choose from included only European names, some of them not even biblical. I was wondering why we could not choose from the local names with significant meanings and easy to pronounce by our people. But I thought that the names in clan lines were pagan and sinful, and could not lead me to the salvation, which only European names would guarantee.

In 1964, when Pope Paul VI canonised the martyrs of Uganda, they kept names like Kizito. And in 1969 in Kampala, Pope Paul said: Africans, you can be missionaries to yourselves! I wondered at the time about the issue of names: should we get them from our dead ancestors, or from the list of saints given to catechumen, the meanings of which were not taught to us.

The issue of meaning of names came to me again when a learned catechist visited my Small Christian Community to preach an Advent retreat. He read from Luke, where Simeon and Anna are mentioned. The preacher asked whether we had an Anna in the group. We had, and she was the headmistress. When she was asked to give the meaning of her name, she said she did not know. I was sure that if any of us were asked, we’d all fail the test.

Then came my turn. I hesitated to raise my hand. If I, Marist Brother Simeon, failed to give the correct answer, the whole outstation would have failed the test. Luckily I gave the correct answer.

It raised the question for me: are the meanings of names still an issue? We were given European names without being provided a background to those names; back then we were not free to choose names that have rich meaning from among our people. Can we not be saints if we bear an African name?

In my religious congregation, the pioneer Brothers used to change their names at the time of first profession, but now that practice is no longer followed. Yes, names are important and sometimes we can aspire to follow the exemplary life of namesakes  but salvation is a grace from God. The emphasis should be not on names, but on making Jesus known and loved.

Names are cultural, and to deny that fact is to erase inculturation. Didn’t Pope John Paul II say that if faith does not become culture, then it is not rooted among the people? A faith that disregards inculturation is superficial.

Encouraging local names must be a reality in our post-Vatican II Church.

 Marist Brother Simeon Banda was born and raised in Malawi and is currently based in Mozambique.