What’s in a Name

Throughout Africa and beyond, Zimbabweans are known for choosing some of the most bold, head-turning English-language names. Zimbabwean producer Kim Chakanetsa tells the story of how her country's journey from colonial rule to independence shaped the nation's unique naming traditions.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Roman Mars?

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• 1:28Roman Mars?

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• 1:56Roman Mars?

  This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

• 2:02Roman Mars?

  About five months ago, producer Kim Chakanetsa opened up a file that was sent to her by her uncle Manu. It was an Excel spreadsheet of Kim's family tree, a project her uncle had been working on for the last several years.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  So far, there are about 300 names on there, tracing our family's history deep into pre-colonial Zimbabwe, the country where I was born. I was a typically large Zimbabwean family. My great-grandfather had two wives and 15 children, and all of them went on to have a minimum of three kids each. Soon I'll be adding a new name to the spreadsheet and upping our family's grand tally, because I'll be having my first child. So I've been thinking a lot about names. My family tree seemed like a good reference point. My family is predominantly Shauna, which is the biggest ethnic group in Zimbabwe. And as I went through it, I was seeing all of the greatest hits,

• 2:58Speaker 01

  the classics when it comes to Shauna names. Tapewa, which means "we've been given", Ruwimbo, which translates to "faith" or "trust", and Munyarazi, which means "to console". There were also English names, common ones, like Ruth, Gladys, and Lewis.

• 3:16Roman Mars?

  But then Kim started to notice a whole other set of Western names. Actually, to English speakers outside Zimbabwe, they aren't so much names as they are just words. She saw one family member who was named "Suffer", another named "Medicine", one of her many uncles was named "Beer".

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Outside of the country, these kinds of names are rather unusual. But to me and millions of other Zimbabweans, these are fairly standard. What might surprise me is if I were to come across a boy called "No Matter", or "Memory", or "Privilege", because these are typically regarded as girls' names.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I have an uncle called "Lavmo", and I have an aunt called "Lavness".

• 4:00Speaker 03

  God knows is quite popular too. Um, I went to school with any more, talk more, pass more, give more, wake more. All of these were in my class.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Tanaka Chidora is a Zimbabwean writer, poet and academic.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Almost everyone in Zimbabwe is a relative with such a name. Almost everyone. To the extent that when I was growing up and I was called Tanaka, I was wondering, why didn't they also give me a name like Love More? You know, because almost everyone around me had such a name.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  If you were born in Zimbabwe like Tanaka and me, especially in the last few decades, you would have heard these kinds of names all around you. But outside of the country, when people hear us say, hi, my name is No Rest, Psychology or Talk More, they're usually questions, comments and jokes. Much of the ribbing is from other Africans, but it also comes from Zimbabweans themselves, who although used to these names, will still raise the occasional eyebrow.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  My name is Learn More. You know, this is Zimbabwean thing, like we have names like this in Zimbabweans, you know? Like Learn More, Give More. When I was growing up, my best friend's name was Take It Easy.

• 5:15Roman Mars?

  Learn More Janasi is a Zimbabwean stand-up comedian who has gotten a lot of mileage out of his given name. Compared to Zimbabwean names like Hatred, Strong Man or Beat Them, the name Learn More might seem mild, but he has not been spared mockery, which he began to discover when he started traveling outside of Zimbabwe. There was this one encounter at the South African border.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  As soon as the immigration officer took my passport, she was just like, oh, your name is Learn More? And I was like, yes. She's like, wow. And she called all her other immigration officers. She's like, look, guys, Zimbabweans are crazy, you know? It just kind of made fun of that a little bit, but I was like, why is that? I've never had this before, you know?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  I have friends from all over Africa who look at these names as a mix of amusement and curiosity, but also, sometimes, ridicule. A guy I once met from Botswana describes Zimbabweans as being too whitewashed, pointing to our names as a prime example. Why were we going for these bizarre English names instead of choosing them in Shona, Devele, Tonga, or any one of our many other indigenous languages? Zimbabwe had such a uniquely dark experience under British colonialism, and it's not easy to square that with us choosing these bold, head-turning English names.

• 6:41Roman Mars?

  Of course, the Shona aren't the only ones who make single names out of religious expressions or big, sentence-long ideas. People do this all over the world. Linguists even have technical terms for them, like sentential names and theophoric names.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  But I can't think of anywhere that goes as big and as creative as we do in Zimbabwe. As I read my family tree, skimming across names like polite, clever, and admire, I did start to wonder, why do we choose names like this? So common that in other parts of Africa, people will automatically know that you're Zimbabwean.

• 7:19Roman Mars?

  The reason these names became so quintessentially Zimbabwean goes way back, before there was even a country called Zimbabwe.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  In our Shona culture, names were meant to communicate. Names were like WhatsApp statuses.

• 7:34Roman Mars?

  Just like people today use their WhatsApp statuses to celebrate, brag, and reflect in front of their communities, Tanaka Chidora says Shona names traditionally did something similar. Those names carried the stories of parents' hopes, dreams, and worries.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Names were carriers of our aspirations, our achievements, our grievances, our tribulations.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Just to note that although there are many other ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, I'll be focusing on the Shona. Within the culture, names could also be used to chide, insult, or even settle scores. For example, Tanaka says, "A mother who finds her in-laws to be troublesome might name her daughter Ntay, which means 'to bother' or 'to nag.'"

• 8:19Speaker 02

  A man who has gone through lots of problems could give the name Namo to his son.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Namo means "misfortune" or "hardship."

• 8:28Speaker 02

  They were meant to communicate to us and to our neighbours that this is who we are, this is what we have achieved, these are the problems that I'm going through right now.

• 8:40Roman Mars?

  Names could be a plea to ancestral spirits for guidance and protection. They could express future desires and imminent fears.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Zimbabwean academic Ignatius Mabasa remembers the saga behind how one of his great uncles got his name. The story goes that one night before his uncle was born, a family member ran off with his neighbour's wife, whose husband threatened to get revenge by burning down the entire village. The same village, Mabasa says, where his uncle's parents lived.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  So they had to escape and run away. They sought refuge with some relatives who were living far away. And so that was the very same night that he was born. And he became Ticha Pondwa, which means "we will be murdered."

• 9:27Roman Mars?

  For the Shona, this way of choosing and giving names, in fact their entire way of life, was turned upside down starting in the late 19th century. The British diamond magnate Cecil John Rhodes— I'm going to pause for Boeing—

• 9:42Roman Mars?

  enters the story here. He played a major role in establishing South Africa's colonial government and began plotting to set up a similar colony to the North.

• 9:51Speaker 05

  This was the country which he brought under the British crown and formed into a British colony.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Rhodes financed the British invasion of territory occupied by the Ndebele and Shona people, territory that Europeans nonetheless felt was theirs for the taking.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  Wild lands in the heart of Africa, which his vision pictured as the home of a thriving, prosperous people, but populated at that time only by wild beasts and roving tribes.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  In 1895, after a brutal war, British settlers created a new colonial state named after Rhodes himself.

• 10:26Roman Mars?

  Rhodesia was established as a so-called settler colony, which is exactly what it sounds like. Large groups of British settlers took the land by force, establishing their own government and steamrolling over the Africans who lived there.

• 10:39Speaker 06

  It was a total attempt at transforming the whole people.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Innocent Mmusindo is a Zimbabwean historian.

• 10:48Speaker 06

  It's an attempt to change people's identities, an attempt to force people to either hybridize or mimic particular ways of doing things, doing justice, particular ways of dressing, language.

• 11:14Roman Mars?

  White Rhodesians seized the cattle of indigenous farmers, burned their crops, and locked Africans into a tax system that was tantamount to slavery. Whites got access to the best jobs, while Africans were forced into low-wage labor in mines or on farms.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Under this new racial hierarchy, English became the language of power. Africans had to adapt. Being able to speak it as an African granted you a little more access, perhaps a slightly higher position on the farm or on the factory floor.

• 11:46Roman Mars?

  That meant that ancient traditions began to take a backseat to the more immediate realities of colonialism. Shona naming practices, where parents gave names that told stories and were meant to shape their children's destinies, those were becoming less common.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Ignatius Mabasa says at times, people would find that their name was considered too difficult by their employer, so they were given another one.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  So, um, you know, my name is Tirivangani. Oh, that's too long, that's too long. Can I, can I call you Peter? So you, you have a period, probably say, from the 1920s going up. Most of the names that you have among indigenous people are names that are being derived from the association with the white population. You know, so I'm working with Mr. Brown. I'll go and give Mr. Brown's name to my son. If Mr. Brown has children, I'll also give names of Mr. Brown to my children.

• 12:47Roman Mars?

  One of the driving forces in the replacement of Shauna names with English ones was the church. Christian missionaries descended on the region, setting up churches, hospitals, and schools all over the colony.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Some of those missionaries encouraged Ignatius Mabasa's grandmother to come to school. Eventually, she was baptized, and with that came a name change.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  My grandmother, Majirega, became Emma, and her brother, Simbarekutaya, baptized John.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Majirega, or Emma, would eventually give birth to a son who was baptized and called Augustin. He in turn had a son named Ignatius. Similar naming choices were being made at the exact same time by Africans throughout the colony.

• 13:34Roman Mars?

  Shauna names did not disappear, but they were mostly just used at home. In public, at school or at work, English names dominated. For the first half of British rule in Rhodesia, Africans did this dance, choosing Western names in order to navigate the colonial system.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  But starting in the 1960s, the country would experience enormous political upheaval. After rebellion, and then a revolution, back to back, it emerged a different nation with a very different set of names. Africans began turning back to Shauna and other indigenous languages, and choosing names that were charged with political resistance.

• 14:14Roman Mars?

  This pushback started when white settlers staged their own resistance by deciding that Rhodesia would no longer be a British colony.

• 14:23Speaker 07

  The people of Rhodesia will not be hindered in our determination to continue exercising our undoubted right to demonstrate.

• 14:31Roman Mars?

  Led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, Rhodesia declared its independence from Great Britain in 1965.

• 14:37Speaker 07

  We do by this proclamation give to the people of Rhodesia the constitution annexed here too. God save the Queen.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  White settlers in Rhodesia had invented their own identity, calling themselves Rhodes, and they were living a very comfortable life. They had good jobs, houses with swimming pools, staff to keep it all running, plus excellent weather.

• 15:02Roman Mars?

  Thanks to an aggressive "Come to Rhodesia" ad campaign that beckoned to white people in Europe and the US, the settler population swelled to about 273,000.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  But this was a tiny minority compared to the roughly 6 million black Africans in Rhodesia, many of whom had been forced off their land by the settlers. Those Africans had hoped to participate in Rhodesia's government, but when the colony declared itself independent, it became clear that this new nation would be run exclusively by the white settlers. For the Africans, this was the last straw.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  They began to suddenly have their eyes open. Wow, oh, so we are oppressed. Oh, so we also have a culture, we have a language, we have a right to be, oh, this is actually our land.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  They were witnessing this massive wave of independence movements sweeping across the continent in the mid-sixties. Inspired and emboldened, Africans in Rhodesia turned from assimilation to full-scale, open rebellion, everything from attacks against the state launched by insurgent and nationalist groups, to the symbolic shedding of European names and returning to African ones.

• 16:23Speaker 04

  They start giving names that address or speak to this situation of being oppressed.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  People were choosing assertive statement-making Shona names. Leading the charge were nationalist leaders, who took on names like Teorayroba, which means "to spill blood", and Chibwe Chitenza, which is hard to translate, but basically suggests someone who cannot be moved. Ignatius says one of his uncles was given a name that reflected this growing sense of defiance.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  His full name was Tichabatonga Mabunu. "We will eventually rule over the whites." What a name.

• 17:10Roman Mars?

  Coming up, Zimbabwe wins its independence. And with that, the nation's culture of big, bold names really takes off. That's after the break.

• 17:20Roman Mars?

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• 20:05Roman Mars?

  After 15 years of war with the white Rhodesian government, Africans finally won their independence in 1980. They renamed their country Zimbabwe.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Zimbabwe was one of the last former colonies to win independence. After watching its neighbors struggle to figure out what to do with their colonial legacies, Zimbabwe's new government decided the best approach was to go very slowly. And this spirit of gradualism would even inspire a shift in Zimbabwe's naming culture.

• 20:36Roman Mars?

  The new prime minister was a man named Robert Gabriel Mugabe. There is a lot to say about him and his complicated legacy. But the Mugabe of 1980 embodied the moment. He was a revolutionary leader and an icon of anti-colonial resistance. But he also was a missionary-educated man who spoke crisp English and was known for his love of cricket and impeccably tailored Savile Row suits.

• 21:01Speaker 06

  There is that saying that Mugabe was more English than the British.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  This is historian Innocent M'Nkendu.

• 21:09Speaker 06

  The political leadership of the time was more English than the English.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  As prime minister, Mugabe encouraged gradualism. There was land redistribution, but it was small scale. New schools were built, but many of them continued to mirror the British system.

• 21:27Roman Mars?

  Other colonial flourishes remained too. African judges insisted on wearing powdered horsehair wigs. And English held firm as the official language in education, government, and just about every other part of civic life in Zimbabwe.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  But as the country was figuring out its new identity, what to keep and what to shed, one of the main places where Zimbabweans could really experiment and push boundaries was names.

• 21:56Speaker 06

  We're talking of a free Zimbabwe.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Givmore Shonai is a Zimbabwean academic.

• 22:03Speaker 06

  So we're also free to do whatever we want with the language as long as it satisfies what we want to do with the names. We can break the rules. We are not free.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  After nearly a century of repression, of being told what you could or could not do, it was in this new free Zimbabwe that the culture of wild experimentation and play with names really took off. As power shifted into the hands of Zimbabweans, so did they sense that they were able to do whatever they wanted with English. Yes, it was still the dominant language, but now Africans were in control, free to remix and shonify their names as they liked.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  I would not just pick a name like obey, like together, like polite. That's too easy. Now, we can add a verb, a determiner, an adjective, and compound it, come up with a name. Now I can go and even express myself more and say, "God knows," more blessing, or "glad" more, or "what's more." Playing around with English and making a difference more complicated.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  This meant that a name like Hajinay, which conveys a message of acceptance and resilience in Shona, got translated to "no matter."

• 23:20Roman Mars?

  They were also taking names inspired by the Bible, like grace and faith and mercy, and translating them into Shona, which was new. These words were never used as names in Shona before.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  My younger brother's name is Kuzivakwache, which is a popular Shona name. After independence, you started to see more of its English translation, which is "God knows." I would bet that most Zimbabweans know of at least one "God knows."

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It's been 45 years since independence, and these names are everywhere. There's a famous ex-footballer, Haveluk Dube, and a politician named Welshman Mure. A friend in Harare once had to call the police, and the officer who showed up introduced himself as Inspector Breakfast. We weren't sure if his first name was Breakfast or Inspector. When I was researching this story, I came across one of several online forums posing the question, "What is the strangest Zimbabwean name you've heard?" There were all sorts of submissions, names like Hard Life and Lieutenant, most of which I could hazard a guess to their backstory. But there was one name on there that I was especially curious about.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Please could you stop by introducing yourself? Tell us who you are.

• 24:42Speaker 05

  My name is Mo Precision Muzazi.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Mo Precision Muzazi is a politician based in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. His name is a nod to the work his father did for decades.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  My father worked for British American Tobacco for almost thirty years. He was working as a machine operator. So in that department, there was a lot of equipment which was manufactured by Precision Engineering. So that's where he got the idea of naming him.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  The fact that his name was in this online forum, full of Zimbabweans, suggests that it's seen as unusual, even by our own creative naming standards.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  My name is something that I really love and adore, and I cherish and I treasure it. Everywhere I go, people actually are curious to say, "What's your name again?" My name has got meaning. It's not a meaningless name. It means being accurate, to the point in whatever I do. So it's kind of inspires me to do the right thing.

• 25:40Roman Mars?

  In the last two decades, Zimbabwe's economy has been in collapse. Record-breaking inflation forced millions to leave and fan out across the globe. This means that the rest of the world has had a lot more exposure to Zimbabwe's unique naming conventions.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  These unique names have also gotten much more attention outside of Zimbabwe, thanks to social media, especially TikTok, where they are a popular punchline.

• 26:04Speaker 06

  Which African countries have the weirdest names?

• 26:09Speaker 06

  Zimbabwe. I know someone whose name is Gearbox. Gearbox! Let me tell you what they do in Zimbabwe.

• 26:16Roman Mars?

  I met someone called Anything. Anything. Anything. This is all mostly in good fun, but Tanaka Chidora worries that the social media roasts, plus the mass exodus out of Zimbabwe, could one day spell the end of a unique naming culture.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  We are now aware, for example, of what the world out there thinks of us because of our names, right?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  And to tell you the truth, most Zimbabwean parents now, when they have children, they are also thinking of where the children will go when they grow up.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Tanaka says he's seeing parents opting for names like Jaden, Jordan and Caden, the kinds of names inspired more by reality TV stars and Premier League footballers than by the New Testament.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Most Zimbabweans are, have now, what we have, we can call an outward orientation. They are saying, when my children go and live outside Zimbabwe, I want them to carry a name that does not bring laughter.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  For a long time, I really didn't like the name Learn More.

• 27:19Roman Mars?

  Zimbabwean stand-up comedian Learn More Janasi started to have reservations about his name when he found out the story behind it.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  It's because my mother was young when she heard me. So my name was a message to my mother,

• 27:35Speaker 04

  to always remind her to learn more from what she had done, you know? So for like a week, actually, my name was Realized. They actually named me Realized. And then they realized, no, no, that's too much, too on the nose. Let's name him Learn More.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  When Learn More first started performing around the world, he used the stage name Long John the Comedian. But privately, when he'd share his real name, people were eager to hear about his origins.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  Learn More is a Zimbabwean story. So that's when I went back to my actual name instead of a stage name. And then I started calling myself Learn More. And it's a conversation starter. As soon as I introduce myself, everybody wants to know why. And that's my way to start educating people, you know?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  But Learn More says we shouldn't be shying away from names like his, which are hard-won and tightly stitched into the fabric of who we are as a country.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Our names are very unique and they come from a real place. So honestly, like, if you have a name like that, you know, if you come from Zimbabwe, just be proud of it. You know, because it's a story, you know? We are all, we are unique. We are very, we are a very unique little country. And we should be proud of it. And I am.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  My relationship to these names has shifted over the years. For a long time, they felt foreign, not really ours. But as I've come to understand them better, I can appreciate the history that led us to them, the Zimbabwean-ness of them. When it came to naming my child, I wanted one that did what our names have done for generations, whether in Shona, Ndebele, or Zimbabwean English. I wanted a name that told a story. Every year in Zimbabwe, you have a long, dry season. And when it finally rains, everything changes. The landscape is green and lush. It's completely transformed.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  My son came after a long wait. His name is Yanaya, which in Shona means "the rain has come."

• 30:03Roman Mars?

  99% Invisible was produced this week by Kim Chakanetsa and edited by Christopher Johnson. This episode was mixed by Martin Gonzalez with music by Swan Real and George Langford. Fact checking by Nidia Batista. Special thanks this week to Trust Semende and Adam Hutchings. Kathy Chu is our executive producer. Kirk Colestady is the digital director. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Perube, Jason DeLeón, Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Lay, Lasham Adon, Joe Rosenberg, Jacob Medina Gleason, Talon and Rain Stradly, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% Invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM Podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the

• 30:43Roman Mars?

  Pandora Building in beautiful Uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites, as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99pi.org.

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