Names

August 5, 2010 – Most individuals here have as one of there names an English type name.  Joseph, Paul, David, etc.  Besides this they will also have 2 or 4 Kenyan names.  It seems they mix and match these to a certain extent.  CGA has the kids write there sponsor every term.  One of the items that must be checked is that the kid uses the same names that the sponsor knows.  Otherwise the sponsor starts asking what happened to the kid they thought they were sponsoring and why did they get a new one and nobody told them.

The spell of some of these English names is interesting, showing that they are not generational names passed on from their forefathers.  Steve got a child named after him – Stevan.  Joyce is often spelled Joice.  Their is Mavine (Marvin I think was the goal).  An of course the pronunciation isn’t always there.

One girl had a child and named him Joseph.  She was calling him Jeff one day.  Joe inquired and said he thought that child was Joseph, why are you calling him Jeff.  Oh, that is the nickname she says, the short version.  Of course Joe disagrees and says it is Joe.  No she says it is Jeff.  Joe asks how she got that.  Well you remove the ‘os’ from Joseph and you get Jeph.  Of course. That’s the way it works.

Well time to move on this morning to hopefully get something a little productive done.  Blogs aren’t productive.  They are a way from me to escape where I’m at.  They are also a good way to make others think I’m doing something worthwhile when I’m feeling anti-social.

From Mbita,

Paul

One of the hardest names for these folds is Joe.  Usually takes our friend several tries to get the person to understand it.  They use Joseph here, but not Joe.