The Akan people of

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These "day names" have further meanings concerning the soul and character of the person. Middle names have considerably more variety and can refer to their birth order, twin status, or an ancestor's middle name. This naming tradition is shared throughout

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

and the African diaspora. During the 18th–19th centuries, enslaved people in the Caribbean from the region that is modern-day Ghana were referred to as Coromantees. Many of the leaders of enslaved people's rebellions had "day names" including Cuffy, Cuffee or Kofi,

Cudjoe Cudjoe, Codjoe or Captain Cudjoe (c. 1660s – 1764),Michael Sivapragasam''After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739–1842'' PhD Dissertation, African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica library ...

or Kojo, Quao or Quaw, and Quamina or Kwame/Kwamina. Most

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have at least one name from this system, even if they also have an English or Christian name. Notable figures with day names include Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah and former

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Secretary-General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

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. In the official orthography of the

Twi Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...

language, the Ashanti versions of these names as spoken in

Kumasi Kumasi (historically spelled Comassie or Coomassie, usually spelled Kumase in Twi) is a city in the Ashanti Region, and is among the largest metropolitan areas in Ghana. Kumasi is located in a rain forest region near Lake Bosomtwe, and is t ...

are as follows. The diacritics on á a̍ à represent high, mid, and low tone (tone does not need to be marked on every vowel), while the diacritic on a̩ is used for vowel harmony and can be ignored. (Diacritics are frequently dropped in any case.) Variants of the names are used in other languages, or may represent different

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schemes. The variants mostly consist of different affixes (in Ashanti, ''kwa-'' or ''ko-'' for men and ''a-'' plus ''-a'' or ''-wa'' for women). For example, among the Fante, the prefixes are ''kwe-'', ''kwa'' or ''ko'' for men and ''e-'', ''a''respectively. Akan ''d̩wo'' or ''jo''(Fante) is pronounced something like English ''Joe'', but there do appear to be two sets of names for those born on Monday.

Day names

Twin names

There are also special names for elder and younger twins. The second twin to be born is considered the elder as they were mature enough to help their sibling out first. (The definition above must be a regional concept because in Cape Coast, heart of Fanti land, the elder twin is the one who comes out first, the second twin is considered the younger one. Therefore, The younger twin would be Kakra; the older twin would be Panyin.) The word Panyin means older/elder. Kakra is short for Kakraba which means little/younger one. The definition/description below for the meaning of younger and an elder are backwards or vice versa.

Birth-order names

There are also names based on the order of birth, the order born after twins, and the order born after remarriage.

Special delivery

Children are also given names when delivered under special circumstances.

Family names

Ashanti people given-names are concluded with a family name ( surname) preceded by a

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...

. The family name (surname) are always given after close relatives and sometimes friends. Since Ashanti names are always given by the men, if a couple receives a son as their first born-baby then the son is named after the father of the husband and if the baby is a girl then she will be named after the mother of the husband. As a result, if the man is called ''Osei Kofi'' and his wife gives birth to a girl as their first born, the girl may be called ''Yaa Dufie'' even if she was not born on Friday. The reason is that the mother of the husband (''Osei Kofi'') is called ''Yaa Dufie''. The Ashanti people usually give these names so that the names of close relatives be maintained in the families to show the love for their families. In the olden days of Ashanti it was a disgrace if an Ashanti man was not able to name any child after his father and/or mother because that was the pride of every Ashanti household. Most of the ethnic-Ashanti family name (surname) given to boys could also be given to girls just by adding the letters "aa". Some Ashanti family names (surnames) can be given to both boys and girls without changing or adding anything. However, there are other ethnic-Ashanti family name (surnames) that are exclusively male names, while others are exclusively female names.

References

Additional references

* J. E. Redden and N. Owusu (1963, 1995). ''Twi Basic Course''. Foreign Service Institute (Hippocrene reprint). * Florence Abena Dolphyne (1996). ''A Comprehensive Course in Twi (Asante) for the Non-Twi Learner''. Accra: Ghana Universities Press.
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