Saturday 20 October 2012

First Name



Note for the folks at home: Outside of the Samburu culture, many Kenyan tribes have stricter rules on the naming of children. The Kikuyu system is the most common: the first-born male and first-born female must be named for the fathers' father and mother, whereas the second-born male and second-born female are named for the mothers' parents. (Two baby boys in a row, then, represent both sides of the family tree, despite no girls being born yet.) From that point on, each subsequent male child alternates between a fathers'-side relative and a mothers'-side relative, and each subsequent female child follows the same rule. Members of the extended family who desire a name-sake, I'm told, may coax a couple into continuing to reproduce, until their turn comes. (This is one rationalization I've heard for the traditionally large sizes of Kenyan families.)