February 28, 2007

African Names

I believe I already mentionned how tough it was to recruit partners in African countries, when everyone seems to have a combination of 3 first and 5 last names. In West Africa for example, imagine having to keep track of Mamadou Diallo, Seydou Li, and Li Diallo's paperwork. Utter Nightmare.

Today, I am preparing paperwork for a lady called Jeanne d'Arc Atanganamadi*. Joan of Arc Atanganamadi. That's a tough name to carry!

*Not the real last name but a similar combination of vowels and consonants.

6 comments:

Beaver said...

Ohhhh let me guess !

Rwanda? Burundi?

So amusing. I met a Burundian guy last fall whose first name was Monastere (Monastery) - Divorced twice, 10 kids !

Other popular names... Pacific, Evangeline, Deogratias (Thank god), Esperandieu (hopes in god). They've gone biblical, I tell you !

The all time winner though is Had-I-Known (I promise you, it's a true story.) HIK was managing one of our suboffices in Zimbabwe (my mentor told me that one). I have to suppress both a chuckle and a shudder when I think of it.

007 in Africa said...

Yes it was Rwanda! "Had-I-Known" is such a cool name!

"Had I Known sex produced babies, I wouldn't have participated!".

Beaver said...

*chuckle*

I wonder what the parents were thinking. There's something to be said for restraint when naming children... Poor kid !

Victoria said...

But the funny names are everywhere! There's a Quebecois hockey player called "LaTendresse", no joke.

Anonymous said...

In Spain some years ago, you could find little girls called "Grace Kelly" and little boys called "Kevin Costner", not joking!

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