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Rebecca Kabaya
Some things in life should be simple, like booking a table at a restaurant, ordering a takeaway or pretty much anything that involves saying one’s name, either on the telephone or in person. Yet, for others, it never has been. For years, names have been put through the verbal mincer to produce a totally different name.

Most children from 2000 till today have been growing up in an era where their parents give them names drawn from foreign celebrities.

As the children grow, the stream of awkward corrections and garbled pronunciation are endless.

Some of these names can make one hanker after English people pronounce it better than the owner.

Despite this, parents have increasingly stuck to the foreign celebrity names for personal reasons.

Plenty of families have Anglicised, adapted or ditched altogether their distinctly indigenous-sounding names.  Some people may wonder why this is often happening.

These questions have led The Saturday Herald Lifestyle on a fascinating journey of investigating the myth behind these names.

Let’s start with Samantha Chigovo, a mother to eight year-old Shakira’s point of view.

Chigovo said her daughter was named after the popular Colombian singer, songwriter, dancer, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Shakira. “When l was pregnant with my daughter in 2010 that was the same year South Africa hosted football World Cup.

Shakira released a song for the championship titled “Waka Waka” (This time for Africa).

“It was a hit song on radio, television and in the streets; that was how l fell in love with the name Shakira. I told my husband that l was going to name our child Shakira.

At first he thought I was joking. He didn’t take it seriously.

“When I delivered my baby in December 2010 I immediately called her Shakira.

A lot of people were shocked and some relatives were against the name, but it was too late,” she said.

Chigovo said her daughter loves her name so does she, and she has no regret whatsoever for naming her daughter after the celebrity Shakira.

The desire to fit in is a universal human trait and the stakes get much higher if you’ve got the foreign media overshadowing your country.

Due to this names are changing with time just as technology and usually all the new technology starts from developed countries like America, Australia, German and China.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), is an American integrated media and entertainment company. WWE has also branched out into other fields, including movies, real estate, and various other business ventures.

These past years wrestling has been toping the charts worldwide with cartoons, clothes and food packages being made with the imitation of the popular wrestlers on them.

As a result locally some parents have named their children after these wrestlers.

One popular name is that of WWE superstar John Cena, whose first name and surname have been given to children.

This shows how much the modern generation wants to fit in through names.

However, giving children names and surnames of celebrities has consequences.

In our African context a surname is one thing that defines who you are.

It is regarded as one’s identity, and it is something that cannot be changed or swapped just like that.

These celebrity names have made people to unknowingly go against their tradition and cultural values.

It is not uncommon to hear of children named after Zimbabwe’s swimming sensation, who is now Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry, because of the way she has represented the country at global platforms like the Olympics, where she bagged a number of gold medals.

Some of these fancy names are even difficult to pronounce.

Shamiso Gwarasimba a teacher at a local primary school said sometimes children with fancy names take time to learn how to write them, because of how complicated some are.

“I once had a Grade Two pupil whose name was Rihanna. As a teacher I had a tough time with that child, because she was ever taking long to learn how to spell out her name.

“Sometimes I would hear her mates asking what her name meant, and to my surprise all she knew was that it was a name of a popular American female musician,” she said.

“We had to shorten her name to Anna, because most pupils failed to pronounce her name properly as well,” she added.

She encouraged parents to give their children meaningful and less complicated names.

She also added that it is not proper for children to feel out of place because of inherited names.