99% Invisible - What’s in a Name

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Throughtout Africa and beyond, Zimbabweans are known for choosing some of the most bold, head-turning English-language names. Zimbabwean producer Kim Chakanetsa tells the story of how her country's journey from colonial rule to independence shaped the nation's unique naming traditions. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. About five months ago, producer Kim Chaganza opened up a file that was sent to her by her uncle Manu. It was an Excel spreadsheet of Kim's family tree, a project her uncle had been working on for the last several years. So far, there are about 300 names on there, tracing our family's history deep into pre-colonial Zimbabwe, the country where I was born. Ours is a typically large Zimbabwean family. My great-grandfather had two wives and 15 children, and all of them went on to have a minimum of three kids each.

Soon I'll be adding a new name to the spreadsheet and upping our family's grand tally because I'll be having my first child. So I've been thinking a lot about names. My family tree seemed like a good reference point. My family is predominantly Shona, which is the biggest ethnic group in Zimbabwe. And as I went through it, I was seeing all of the greatest hits,

the classics when it comes to Shona names. Tapua, which means we've been given. Rwimbo, which translates to faith or trust. And Mnirazi, which means to console. There were also English names, common ones, like Ruth, Gladys, and Lewis. But then Kim started to notice a whole other set of Western names. Actually, to English speakers outside Zimbabwe, they aren't so much names as they are just words.

She saw one family member who was named Suffer, another named Medicine. One of her many uncles was named Beer. Outside of the country, these kinds of names are rather unusual. But to me and millions of other Zimbabians, these are fairly standard. What might surprise me is if I were to come across a boy called No Matter, or memory, or privilege, because these are typically regarded as girls' names. I have an uncle called Lovemore, and I have an aunt called Loveness. God knows is quite popular too.

I went to school with any more, talk more, pass more, give more, work more. All of these were in my class. Tanaka Chidora is a Zimbabwean writer, poet and academic. Almost everyone in Zimbabwe is a relative with such a name. Almost everyone. To the extent that when I was growing up and I was called Tanaka, I was wondering, why didn't they also give me a name like Love Mo? You know, because almost everyone around me is such a name.

If you were born in Zimbabwe like Tanaka and me, especially in the last few decades, you would have heard these kinds of names all around you. But outside of the country, when people hear us say, Hi, my name is No Rest, Psychology, or Talk More. There are usually questions, comments and jokes. Much of the ribbing is from other Africans, but it also comes from Zimbabians themselves,

who, although used to these names, will still raise their occasional eyebrow. My name is Learn More. You know, this is Zimbabwe thing. Like, we have names like this is Zimbabwe. You know, like Learn more, Give More. When I was growing up, my best friend's name was take it easy. Learnmore Janasi is a Zimbabwean stand-up comedian who has gotten a lot of mileage out of his given name.

Compared to Zimbabwe names like hatred, strongman, or beat them, the name Learnmore might seem mild. But he has not been spared mockery, which he began to discover when he started traveling outside of Zimbabwe. There was this one encounter at the South African border. As soon as the immigration officer took my passport, she was just, like, your name is Learn More? And I was like, yes. She's like, wow. And she called all her other immigration officer.

She's like, look, guys, Zabweans are crazy. You know? And just kind of made fun of that a little bit. But I was like, what is that? I've never heard this before, you know? I have friends from all over Africa who look at these names of the mix of amusement and curiosity, but also sometimes ridicule. A guy I once met from Botswana describes Zimbabians as being too

whitewashed, pointing to our names as a prime example. Why were we going for these bizarre English names instead of choosing them in Shauna, Devele, Tonga, or any one of our many other indigenous languages? Zimbabwe had such a uniquely dark experience under British colonialism, and it's not easy to square that with us choosing these bold, head-turning English names. Of course, the Shauna aren't the only ones who make single names out of religious expressions, or big sentence-long ideas. People do this all over the world. Linguists even have technical terms for them,

like sentential names and theophoric names. But I can't think of anywhere that goes as big and as creative as we do in Zimbabwe. As I read my family tree skimming across names like Polites, Clever, and Admire, I did start to wonder, why do we choose names like this? So common that in other parts of Africa,

people will automatically know that you're Zimbabwean. The reason these names became so quintessentially Zimbabwean goes way back, before there's even a country called Zimbabwe. In our Shona culture, names were meant to communicate. Names were like WhatsApp statuses. Just like people today use their WhatsApp statuses to celebrate, brag, and reflect in front of their communities, Tanaka Chidora says,

Shona names traditionally did something. similar. Those names carried the stories of parents' hopes, dreams, and worries. Names were careers of our aspirations, our achievements, our grievances, our tribulations. Just to note that although there are many other ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, I'll be focusing on the Shona. Within the culture, names could also be used to chide, insult, or even settle scores. For example, Tanaka says, a mother who finds her in-laws to be troubled. might name her daughter, Netzai, which means to bother or to nag. A man who has gone through lots of problems could give the name Namu to his son.

Namu means misfortune or hardship. They were meant to communicate to us and to our neighbours, that this is who we are, this is what we have achieved. These are the problems that I'm going through right now. Names could be a plea to ancestral spirits for guidance and protection. They could express future desires and imminent fears. Zimbabwean academic Ignatius Mabasa remembers the saga behind how one of his great uncles got his name. The story goes that one night before his uncle was born, a family member ran off with his neighbor's wife, her husband threatened to get revenge by burning down the entire village.

The same village, Mabasa says, where his uncle's parents lived. So they had to escape and run away. They sought refuge with some relatives who were living far away. And so that was the very same night that he was born. And he became teacher Pondwa, which means we will be murdered. For the Shauna, this way of choosing and giving names. In fact, their entire way of life was turned upside down starting in the late 19th century. The British diamond magnate Cecil John Rhodes, I'm going to pause for booing,

enters the story here. He played a major role in establishing South Africa's colonial government and began plotting to set up a similar colony to the north. This was the country which he brought under the British crown and formed into a British colony. Rhodes financed the British invasion of territory occupied by the Endevele and Schoenna people. Territory that Europeans nonetheless felt was theirs for the taking. Wild lands in the heart of Africa, which his vision pictured as the home of a thriving, prosperous people,

but populated at that time only by wild beasts and roving tribes. In 1895, after a brutal war, British settlers created a new colonial state named after Rhodes himself. Rhodes was established as a so-called settler colony, which is exactly what it sounds like. Large groups of British settlers took the land by force, establishing their own government and steamrolling over the Africans who live there. It was a total attempt at transforming a whole people. Innocent Monsindo is a Zimbabwean historian. It's an attempt to change people's identities, an attempt to force people to either hybridize or mimic particular ways of doing things,

doing justice, ways of dressing, language. White Rhodesian seized the cattle of indigenous farmers, burned their crops, and locked Africans into a tax system that was tantamount to slavery. Whites got access to the best jobs, while Africans were forced into low-wage labor in mines or on farms. Under this new racial hierarchy, English became the language of power. Africans had to adapt.

being able to speak it as an African granted you a little more access, perhaps the slightly higher position on the farm or on the factory floor. That meant that ancient traditions began to take a back seat to the more immediate realities of colonialism. Shana naming practices

where parents gave names that told stories and were meant to shape their children's destinies, those were becoming less common. Ignatius Mabasa says at times people will find that their name was considered too difficult by the employer. So they were given another one.

So, you know, my name is Tirivangani. Oh, that's too long. That's too long. Can I call you, Peter? So you have a period, probably say, from the 1920s going up. Most of the names that you have among indigenous people are names that are being derived from the association with the white population. You know, so I'm working with Mr. Brown. I'll go and give Mr. Brown's name to my son.

If Mr. Brown has children, I'll also give names of Mr. Brown to my children. One of the driving forces and the replacement of Shauna Names with English ones was the church. Christian missionaries descended on the region, setting up churches, hospitals, and schools all over the colony. Some of those missionaries encouraged Ignatius Mabas's grandmother to come to school. Eventually she was baptized, and with that came a name change. My grandmother, Masuraga, became Emma, and her brother, Simbara-kutaya, baptized John. Magyrega, or Emma, would eventually give birth to his son who was baptized and called Augustine. He in turn had a son named Ignatius.

Similar naming choices were being made at the exact same time by Africans throughout the colony. Shona names did not disappear, but, but they were mostly just used at home. In public, at school or at work, English names dominated. For the first half of British rule in Rhodesia, Africans did this dance, choosing Western names in order to navigate the colonial system. But starting in the 1960s,

the country would experience enormous political upheaval. After a rebellion, and then a revolution, back to back, it emerged a different nation with a very different set of names. Africans would begin turning back to Shona and other indigenous languages and choosing names that were charged with political resistance. This pushback started when white settlers staged their own resistance by deciding that Rhodesia would no longer be a British colony. The people of Rhodesia will not be hindered in our determination to continue exercising

our undoubted right to demonstrate. Led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, Rhodesia declared its independence from Great Britain in 1965. We do, by this proclamation, give to the people of Rhodesia, the Constitution annexed here too. God save the Queen. White settlers in Rhodesia had invented their own identity, calling themselves Rhodes. And they were living a very comfortable life. They had good jobs, houses with swimming pools, staff to keep it all running, plus excellent weather.

Thanks to an aggressive come-to-Rodisia ad campaign that Becca to white people in Europe and the US, the settler population swelled to about 273,000. But this was a tiny minority compared to the roughly 6 million black Africans in Rhodesia, many of whom had been forced off their land by the settlers. Those Africans had hoped to participate in Rhodesia's government. But when the colony declared itself independent,

it became clear that this new nation would be run exclusively by the white settlers. For the Africans, this was the last straw. They began to suddenly have their eyes open. Wow. Oh, so we are oppressed. Oh, so we also have a culture. We have a language. We have a right to be. Oh, this is actually our land.

They were witnessing this massive wave of independence movements sweeping across the continent in the mid-60s. Inspired and emboldened, Africans in Rhodesia turned from assimilation to full-scale open rebellion, everything from attacks against the state launched by insurgent and nationalist groups, to the symbolic shedding of European names and returning to African ones. They start giving names that address or speak to this situation of being oppressed. People were choosing assertive statement-making shone name. leading the charge were nationalist leaders

who took on names like Teorairoba, which means to spill blood, and Chibwe Chiteza, which is hard to translate, but basically suggests someone who cannot be moved. Ignatius says one of his uncles was given a name that reflected this growing sense of defiance. His full name was

Tichava Tonga Mabunu. We will eventually rule over the whites. What a name? Coming up, Zimbabwe wins its independence. And with that, the nation's culture of big, bold names, really takes off. That's after the break. After 15 years of war with the white Rhodesian government, Africans finally won their independence in 1980.

They renamed their country, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was one of the last former colonies to win independence. After watching its neighbors struggle to figure out what to do with their colonial legacies, Zimbabwe's new government decided the best approach was to go very slowly. And this spirit of gradualism would even inspire a shift in Zimbabwe's naming culture. The new prime minister was a man named Robert Gabriel Mugabe. There is a lot to say about him and his complicated legacy. But the Mugabe of 1980 embodied the moment.

He was a revolutionary leader and an icon of anti-colonial resistance. But he also was a missionary-educated man who spoke crisp English and was known for his love of cricket and impeccably tailored Savile row suits. There is that saying that Mugabe was more English than the British. This is historian, innocent Mucindo. The political leadership of the time was more English than the English. As Prime Minister, Mugabe encouraged gradualism. There was land redistribution, but it was small. scale. New schools were built, but many of them continued to mirror the British system.

Other colonial flourishes remained too. African judges insisted on wearing powdered horsehair wigs, and English held firm as the official language in education, government, and just about every other part of civic life in Zimbabwe. But as the country was figuring out its new identity, what to keep and what to shed, one of the main places where Zimbabians could really experiment and push boundaries was names. We're talking of a free Zimbabwe. Give Moshonai as a Zimbabwean academic. So we're also free to do whatever we want with the language

as long as it satisfies what we want to do with the names. We can break the rules. We are not free. After nearly a century of repression of being told what you could or could not do, it was in this new free Zimbabwe. that the culture of wild experimentation and play with names really took off. As power shifted into the hands of Zimbabians,

so did they sense that they were able to do whatever they wanted with English. Yes, it was still the dominant language, but now Africans were in control, free to remix and shonify their names as they liked. I would not just pick a name like obey, like together, like polite, that's too easy. Now we can add a verb, a determiner, an adjective and compound and come up with a name. Now I can go and even express myself more and say, God knows more blessing or glad more or worse more,

playing around with English and making it even more complicated. This meant that a name like Hajinei, which conveys a message of acceptance and resilience in Shona, got translated to No Matter. They were also taken names inspired by the Bible, like grace and faith and mercy, and translating them into Shona, which was new. These words were never used as names in Shana before. My younger brother's name is Kuziva Kwashe, which is a popular Shona name. After independence, you started to see more of its English translation, which is God knows.

I would bet that most Zimbabians know of at least one. God knows. It's been 45 years since independence, and these names are everywhere. There's a famous ex-footballer Haveluk Dube, and a politician named Welshman Moube. A friend in Harare once had to call the police, and the officer who showed up introduced himself as Inspector Breakfast. We weren't sure if his first name was Breakfast or Inspector. When I was researching the story, I came across one of several.

online forums, posing the question, what is the strangest Zimbabwean name you've heard? There were all sorts of submissions, names like Hard Life and Lieutenant, most of which I could hazard a guess to their backstory. But there was one name on there that I was especially curious about. Please could you stop by introducing yourself? Tell us who you are. My name is More Precision Muzadzi. More Precision Mazzazi is a politician based in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. His name is a His name is a knot to the work his father did for decades. My father worked for British American tobacco for almost 30 years.

He was working as a machine operator. So in that department, there was a lot of equipment, which was manufactured by precision engineering. So that's where he got the idea of naming me. The fact that his name was in this online forum, full of Zimbabweans, suggests that it's seen as unusual, even by our own creative naming standards. name is something that I really love and adore, and I cherish and I treasured. Everywhere I go. People actually are curious to say, what's your name again? My name has got meaning, slowly meaningless name. It means being accurate to the point in whatever I do. So it's kind of inspires me to do the right thing. In the last two decades, Zimbabwe's economy has been in collapse.

Record-breaking inflation forced millions to leave and fan out across the globe. This means that the the world has had a lot more exposure to Zimbabwe's unique naming conventions. These unique names have also gotten much more attention outside of Zimbabwe. Thanks to social media, especially TikTok, where they are a popular punchline. Which African countries have the weirdest names? Zimbabwe. I know someone whose name is gearbox. Gearbox.

Let me tell you what they do in Zimbabwe. I met someone called Anything. Anything. Anything. This is all mostly in good fun, but Tanaka Chedora worries that the social media roasts, plus the mass exodus out of Zimbabwe, could one day spell the end of a unique naming culture. We are now aware, for example, of what the world out there thinks of us because of our names, right? And to tell you the truth, most is my parents now, when they have children,

they are also thinking of where the children will go when they grow up. Tanaka says he's seeing parents opting for names like Jaden, Jordan and Caden. The kinds of names inspired more by reality TV stars and Premier League footballers than by the New Testament. Most of Zimbabweans have now, what we can call an outward orientation. They are saying when my children go and live outside Zimbabwe, I want them to carry a name that does not bring laughter. For a long time, I really didn't like the name Learn More. Zimbabwe and stand-up comedian Learn More Janasi started to have reservations about his name when he found out the story behind it.

It's because my mother was young when she heard me. So my name was a message to my mother. To always remind her to learn more from what she had done, you know? So for like a week, actually, my name was realized. They actually named me Realize. and then they realized, no, no, that's too much. Two on the nose. Let's name him, Learn More.

When Learn More first started performing around the world, he used the stage name Long John the comedian. But privately, when he'd share his real name, people were eager to hear about its origins. Learn More is a Zimbabwean story. So that's when I went back to my actual name, instead of a stage name. And then I started calling myself Learn More. And it's a conversation starter. As soon as I introduce myself,

everybody wants to know why. And that's my way to start educating people, you know. But Loemort says we shouldn't be shying away from names like his, which are hard won and tightly stitched into the fabric of who we are as a country. Our names are very unique. And they come from a real place. So honestly, like, if you have a name like that, you know, if you come from Zimbabwe, just be proud of it.

You know, because it's a story. You know, we are all unique. We are a very unique little country, and we should be proud of it. And I am. My relationship to these names has shifted over the years. For a long time, they felt foreign, not really ours. But as I've come to understand them better, I can appreciate the history that led us to them, the Zimbabweanness of them.

When it came to naming my child, I wanted to be a very child. one that did what our names have done for generations, whether in Shona, Devele or Zimbabwe in English. I wanted a name that told a story. Every year in Zimbabwe, you have a long, dry season. And when it finally rains, everything changes. The landscape is green and lush. It's completely transformed. My son came after a long wait. His name is Yanaya. which Enshana means the rain has come. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Kim Chaganetsa and edited by Christopher Johnson. This episode was mixed by Martine Gonzalez with music by Swan Real and George Langford.

Fact-checking by Nydia Battista. Special thanks this week to Trust Semende and Adam Hutchings. Kathy 2 is our executive producer, Kirk Colstady, the digital director. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Perube, Jason DeLeon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Leigh, Lachamadonne, Joe Rosenberg, Jacob Medina Gleason, Tallinn and Rain Stradley, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% of the visible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building.

In beautiful, uptown, Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI. dot org.