Zulu names, like most indigenous names in Southern Africa, are often given regarding the situation of the family when a child is born. This is also referred to as the ‘home name.’
For example, names can denote expectations and encouragement for a baby, reflect how the family relates to others in the community, or describe the weather or setting in which the baby was born.
Zulu children are named even before they are born but after birth, an imbeleko ceremony is performed. Zulus regard it as a must to perform the imbeleko ceremony for every child in the family for the following reasons: to introduce them to their ancestors who live in the spirit world of unkulunkulu, to protect the child from misfortunes, and to provide an opportunity for naming the child.
Zulus carry more than one name and each of these can be given by members of the extended family. Zulu, a nation of Nguni-speaking people in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.
They are a branch of the southern Bantu and have close ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties with the Swazi and Xhosa. The Zulu are the single largest ethnic group in South Africa and numbered about nine million in the late 20th century.
Traditionally grain farmers, they also kept large herds of cattle on the lightly wooded grasslands, replenishing their herds mainly by raiding their neighbors.
European settlers wrested grazing and water resources from the Zulu in prolonged warfare during the 19th century, and, with much of their wealth lost, modern Zulu depend largely on wage labor on farms owned by individuals of European descent or work in the cities of South Africa.
The genealogically senior man of each clan is its chief, traditionally its leader in war and its judge in peace. Headmen (induna), usually close kin of the chief, continue to have charge of sections of the clan.
This clan system was adopted nationwide under the Zulu king, to whom most clan chiefs are related in one way or another. When the Zulu nation was formed, many chiefs were married to women of a royal clan or were royal kinsmen installed to replace dissident clan heads.
The king relied on confidential advisers, and chiefs and subchiefs formed a council to advise him on administrative and judicial matters. People with the same surname once belonged to the same localized clan.
The clan name, or isibongo, functions now, in modern society, as the surname. There are many naming traditions from all around the world.
The naming structures in different cultures can vary dramatically. No matter where you come from, however, naming traditions unite families and cultural groups.
