African Names

This name from the Akan language of Ghana in West Africa is traditionally given to baby girls born on a Tuesday. The male version is Kwabena or Kobena.

A lively name often used to honor a deceased grandmother in Yoruba culture.

Has a feminine feline feel.

Wesley Snipes chose this distinctive East African name for his son.

Adwoa is a given name used for women born on Monday in Western Africa, particularly Ghana and some parts of Togo and Ivory Coast. The male equivalent is Kwadwo.

The surname of the 44th US President has been been adopted as a first, for girls as well as boys, by admiring parents around the world. And the O beginning even makes it fashionable. Though Barack Obama's name derives from the Luo people of Kenya, Obama is also a Japanese place name and a surname that means "little beach."

A relatively common French surname associated with sometimes scandalous French novelist/dramatist Jean Genet. The name may derive from genêt, the French name for the broom shrub. Alternatively, it can derive from the French forms of Eugene, John or Janet as an ancestral surname.

Pronounced mah-zah, Maaza means a pleasant scent, usually from a yellow daisy popular in Ethiopia. Hot young Ethiopian-American novelist Maaza Mengiste introduced the name to our shores.

A bold and evocative African place name. The country of Kenya gets its name from Mount Kenya, referred to it as "Kirinyaga" or "Kerenyaga" by the local Kikuyu people, meaning "mountain of whiteness" due to its snow-capped peak.

Its resonant rhythm and positive connotations have led to some popularity with African-American parents, though it tends to have a masculine feel, particularly considering the rise of a certain Barack.

Gingery.

Popular etymology derives this West African country's name from the Wolof words sunu gal, "our canoe". It's an appealing image, of a nation of people all in the same boat. Some country names have taken off as baby names, but this one, not yet.

The three soft a's make for a calm and rhythmic name, though some risk of salami jokes.

Kwadwo is a name given to men born on Monday in Western Africa, particularly Ghana and some parts of Togo and Ivory Coast. The female variant is Adwoa.

The capital of Kenya makes a melodic and worldly name.

The Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. Most Ghanaians have a name using this system (think Kofi Annan, whose name means born on a Friday).

A bright and melodic Swahili name with a positive meaning, Zuwena is particularly popular in Tanzania and Uganda. It also appears in the title of a song by Tanaznian artist Diamond Platnumz.

One African choice that might be easier to understand if spelled phonetically: it's pronounced TAH-shee.

Militaristic.

This name of Angola's capital city has occasionally been used for baby girls.