HARARE, Zimbabwe — In a country where English is an official language and the dominant tongue in schools and government, parents in Zimbabwe are choosing first names that serve as condensed family stories — words such as Privilege, Lovejoy, Hardlife and Shame that carry the weight of personal circumstances at the moment of birth.
Privilege Mubani, 37, a bar manager in the capital, said she initially did not think much about her name. But as an adult she asked her father what it meant and learned that her mother had become pregnant out of wedlock, a pregnancy that carried stigma in a conservative society. A suitor married her mother despite the circumstances, and the mother felt redeemed.
“People had been laughing at her. She was being mocked for having a ‘fatherless’ child,” Mubani said with a grin. “Naming me Privilege was her own expression of gratitude.”
David Chikwaza, a decolonization researcher at Dublin City University’s School of History and Geography in Ireland, said the practice runs deeper than the country’s colonial and Christian legacy.
“It is an echo of pre-colonial naming traditions. Zimbabweans, and Africans in general, are very spiritual and the naming of a child always carried deep symbolism,” Chikwaza said. “Parents would name their child as a way of addressing a societal or a personal issue. Colonialism promoted English as a language of sophistication, so Africans simply turned to the English vocabulary for expression, but the meanings remain the same.”
MSI previously reported on this naming tradition, noting that the names function as compressed stories of what families faced at the time of birth. Read the earlier coverage.
Lovejoy Mutongwiza, 33, a journalist and chief executive of the online news outlet 263chat, said his name reflects the state of his parents’ relationship when they had him.
“My mum and dad said they were madly in love and in a happy place in their lives when they conceived me, so they aptly named me Lovejoy,” he said. “It’s a befitting name. I think I have lived up to it because I am rarely angry. I am naturally a bubbly person.”
Others embrace names that outsiders might consider degrading. Shame Chikwana, 51, said he has resisted pressure from his sister to adopt a more conventional name as an adult.
“I would never trade it for any other name. I was named after my late grandfather so it’s a heritage I am carrying,” he said. He added that his parents refused to explain why his grandfather was given the name Chikwana.
The distinctive naming tradition occasionally draws international attention. During the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament in January, Zimbabwe’s national team sheet featured names such as Teenage, Godknows, Divine, Marvellous, Knowledge, Prince and Prosper. The roster quickly trended on social media.
“I have never seen a team with cooler names. I am hearing the commentator say these names and I am like, there’s no way these are real,” one TikTok user said.
Stand-up comedian Learnmore Jonasi, a 2024 finalist on “America’s Got Talent,” has also drawn laughs in the United States by riffing on his own name and others from Zimbabwe, such as Givemore, Best, Promise, Guarantee, Anxious, Innocent, Confidence and Hardlife.
For many Zimbabweans, the names are a source of pride and carry an expectation to live up to their meaning.