I forsook alien name to avoid taking on nonsensical identity

Recently, I wrote about why I “murdered” Robert, which was my so-called Christian name. I got a rich kaleidoscope of responses from readers. Some of my interrogators took offence and charged me with hypocrisy. They wondered why I would attack European names in English. Some told me there was nothing in a name – that it was simply an identifier, a meaningless moniker that only serves to distinguish one person from the next. The same way a cabbage is named to isolate it from other vegetables like carrots. But a gutsy few told me they were dropping their imperialist names. I regard all those comments with respect. Today, I continue the debate by telling you why I dropped “Show.”

Upon my birth, I was given two names. The first was Mulla – my paternal grandfather’s name. This was “natural” traditional practice since the first-born male child among the Akamba is typically named after the paternal grandfather. The other name was more stunning, and frankly, flummoxing. I was named “Show” after the Kitui Agricultural Show. It was a very odd name but I didn’t appreciate just how strange it was until I grew up. The locals – Akamba natives in Kitui – have difficulty with the pronunciation of certain English names. That’s because Kikamba, like other indigenous African languages, is a linguistic family group distinct from European languages. Certain letters, intonation, or inflections are either missing or entirely foreign.