Names are important.
They convey identity, culture, and heritage—your story, captured in a short series of letters. A name is often the first gift a person receives, sometimes even before their first cry. It’s how the world calls, remembers, and responds to you. But more than that, a name is a vessel of meaning, intention, and sometimes, prophecy. Across cultures and generations, names have carried weight, not just as identifiers but as affirmations of belonging.
In many African cultures, names are more than personal; they’re communal. For instance, among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, names often reflect the circumstances of a child’s birth, the family’s hopes, or their spiritual convictions. A name like Omobolaji doesn’t just sound beautiful; it tells a story of a child born into honour and abundance, a life already wrapped in promise. Names are chosen with care, often after rituals, consultations with elders, and prayers.
Names also serve as memory keepers. They tether us to our ancestors, our lineage, and our legacy. In some families, names are passed down across generations, each echoing a grandmother's or great-grandfather's voice. These names are oral time capsules, preserving history, loss, love, and resilience.
They also carry deep emotion. Some names come out of joy: a long-awaited child, a miracle, a new beginning. Others are born out of pain, named to remember a loss, mark a struggle, or carry on when someone else couldn’t. Even nicknames, as casual and playful as they may seem, are often laced with affection, memory, and meaning. They’re how we form intimacy in our language.
And in today’s world, names continue to evolve.
My name is Omobolaji, “a child who has awakened into wealth and honour.” While wealth can mean many things, for me, the richness has come in layers: in the strength of my roots, the warmth of my family, and the quiet pride that comes from carrying something meaningful. My name reminds me that I was born into purpose, that my presence has weight.
Still, I’ve learnt that names don’t always land softly in new environments. On my first day at a new job, I was introduced to a colleague who tried to pronounce Omobolaji and struggled. After a few attempts, I offered a variation—Bolaji. She still stumbled. Eventually, she asked, “Do you have another name?” I told her, Racheal. I normally wouldn’t offer my English name so quickly, but I could see that she was genuinely trying. It wasn’t dismissal; it was effort, even if it fell short.
Then, a few days later, I met the director of my department. When I introduced myself as Omobolaji, she paused, then said my name out loud, syllable by syllable. She repeated it. And again. She smiled and said, “I’ll get it right. I don’t want a shortcut.” There was no need to shrink my name to fit her tongue—she was willing to stretch hers to meet it.
I’ve never been in a space where people didn’t know how to pronounce my name. It opened up a new world of thought and conversations I hadn’t needed to have before. I started wondering: how do others feel when they come to my side of the country, and we, in our comfort, stumble over their names or avoid them altogether? How many people, in different spaces, feel a subtle disconnect from their name, like a part of them has to stay in the background to get by?
Now, I exist at work in a kind of duality. Some people call me Omobolaji; others call me Racheal. Each name carries its rhythm, its own story. But when someone chooses to say Omobolaji and says it with care, it feels like they’re choosing to honour all of me, not just the parts that are easy to pronounce.
So yes—names are important. They are more than syllables. They are symbols. Anchors. Invitations. Mirrors. A name may be short, but the story behind it is often anything but. To carry a name is to carry meaning, and in that meaning, we find not just who we are but who we are meant to be.
The Way We Speak
There’s something sacred about the way we speak. Language is more than just words strung together; it’s rhythm, memory, culture, and instinct. For many of us, our first language was the sound of home: the voice of a mother, the lilt of a father’s laughter. For me, that language was Yoruba. It shaped the way I heard the world and, naturally, the way I spoke back to it.
Yoruba is rich, poetic, expressive, and emotional. But it also has its quirks. One of them is what many call the H factor—a speech pattern where 'H' is often dropped or added where it doesn't belong. For example, someone might say "hegg" instead of "egg,” or "house" might sound like "ouse." It’s not a flaw; it’s just how our tongues were trained in our environment. It’s how our ears processed language from the very beginning.
But I’ve noticed that language takes on new meaning when we step outside the comfort of our original environment. Recently, I entered a cab and told the driver I was alighting at Dubai Crescent. The driver chuckled and repeated the word the way I’d said it—with a deliberate emphasis on the ‘d ’ and a soft swallow of the rest. Then he said, “Na so una dey talk am?” It was meant to be a joke. But in that moment, it didn’t feel funny.
I realised then how deeply our speech patterns become the target of humour once we step into spaces where a different standard of “correct” pronunciation exists. In my environment, how I pronounced Dubai would have passed unnoticed. But here, outside my bubble, my accent became a spotlight.
Language is political. It determines who is heard and who is mocked. Who is seen as “polished,” and who is “local”? We live in a world where some accents are praised and others are ridiculed, not because they lack clarity but because they don’t carry the weight of global prestige. But accents are not signs of broken English; they are signs of where we’re from, how we learnt to speak, and the cultures we carry in our mouths.
I’m learning not to flinch when someone mocks the way I speak. I’m learning that there’s no shame in sounding like where I’m from. It’s a kind of pride. Every voice has an origin.