African Names

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

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

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

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.

Kadida is an Anglicized form of the Arabic name Khadija, wife of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

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 Ghanans have a name using this system (think Kofi Annan, whose name means born on a Friday).

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.

Will be frequently misunderstood as Pele or, worse, "pilly".

Although the best-known Kehinde is the male painter Kehinde Wiley, this name is used for both genders in its native Nigeria and can be just as attractive for a girl.

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.

Though this is traditionally a male name, it can work for a girl in our culture. Might also be considered a short form of the Italian Amadea.

Unlikely to take over Kenya's spot as the dominant African place-name.