Names
Yoruba names and their meanings
✦ Find a name for your child a guided finder, built on the customs below
No Yoruba name is an empty label: every one records a circumstance, a hope, or a family's story. Johnson's history devotes a whole chapter to names — and distinguishes three kinds every Yoruba person may carry.
1 · Àmútọ̀runwá — the name a child is born with
Some circumstances of birth are the name — no one confers it; the child “brings it from heaven”. The most famous are the twins:
- Táíwò — the first-born of twins — "have the first taste of the world" read →
- Kẹ́hìndé — the second-born of twins — "he who lags behind" read →
- Ìgè — a child born feet-first read →
- Òjó — a boy born with the cord around his neck read →
- Dàda — a child born with curly hair — "owner of a head of wealth" read →
- Babátúndé — "father comes again" — a boy born after his grandfather has died read →
- Yétúndé — "mother comes again" — a girl born after her grandmother has died read →
2 · Àbísọ — the christening name
The àbísọ is the name given at the naming ceremony, and it speaks: of the family's joys and griefs, its devotion, its rank and its hopes — names built on Adé (crown), Olú (chief), Ọlá (honour), Babá and Ìyá (father, mother), each element carrying meaning.
3 · Oríkì — the praise name
Beside the name proper stands the oríkì — the attributive or “pet” name that praises what the child is or will be. Johnson notes that many people are better known by their oríkì than by their real name; with the name, the oríkì and the orílẹ̀ (totem) together, a person is completely distinguished.
The naming ceremony — ìsọmọlórúkọ
A Yoruba child is named in ceremony, not in passing. Historically the naming fell on the ninth day for a boy, the seventh for a girl and the eighth for twins; today most families keep the eighth day, or the nearest the family can gather. It is the child’s first appearance before the family — kó ọmọ jáde, “bringing the child out.”
In the old rite the family assembled early, the mother and child were brought from the room, and water was tossed onto the roof so the baby caught the spray — the child cried, and the family shouted for joy. Then the names were pronounced by the parents and elders, gifts were pressed on the baby, and the feast followed.
The tasting tray
Small symbolic foods touch the child’s lips and are shared round the room — each one a prayer said with the mouth:
- Omi (water)
- Purity, and a life that flows without obstruction.
- Oyin (honey)
- Sweetness of life.
- Iyọ̀ (salt)
- Flavour and worth — a life that is never insipid.
- Obì àbàtà (kola nut)
- Long life, and the seal of welcome before the family.
- Orógbó (bitter kola)
- Old age — “k’ẹ́ gbó, k’ẹ́ tọ́.”
- Ataare (alligator pepper)
- Fruitfulness — a house full of children.
- Epo pupa (palm oil)
- Ease, and calm passage through hard places.
Lists vary by family and town; these are the ones most widely kept. Whatever the tray holds, the meanings are spoken aloud as each name is given — which is why the state of the house is read before a child is named.
Read the whole chapter
Diacritics matter — the marks carry the tone, and the tone carries the meaning. The full chapter covers all of it: àbíkú names, Muslim and Christian naming, contractions, and the proverb that “the home names a child.”
Researching your own family's names? Build them into a family tree.
