From Mtito Andei to Kirinyaga: How different towns got their names

Kenya has intriguing tales about how some of its places, towns, and locations got their names, including its official name, Kenya.

Once upon a time, Kenya was known as the British East Africa Protectorate. It was given this name by the Imperial East Africa Company, a company that was given the responsibility by Britain to set up and administer the colonial asset.  

When taking over the administration task, no name such as Kenya existed among the tribes making up the protectorate area.

When Ludwig Krapf claimed that he had found the name Kiinya (referring to today’s Mt Kenya) among the Kamba (during his documented visit to Chief Kivoi in 1849), it was challenged when he presented it back at home. 

With the continued struggle for a piece of East Africa’s legendary history, explorers upon explorers had different views on the locals’ name for the mysterious landmark that they came across during their exploration escapades.  

Captain Hinde and Mackinder were later to nail the coffin of the debate when they confirmed that indeed, the Kamba had a name (Kiinya) for the mountain, the Agikuyu referred to it as 'Kirinyaga', meaning “mountain of whiteness”, because of its snowcapped peak. When the word is split into two – “kiri”, and “nyaga, it translates to the mountain that has (kiri) ostriches (Nyaga).  

Upon taking over the administrative task handed to it by the British, IEAC divided the colony into territories (provinces), and later when it became a British Colony, it was named Kenya, after corrupting the Kamba and Kikuyu names.  

On record, are debates that happened locally and at the headquarters on the name to be given to the colony.  

Many of the present names of places and locations are shrouded in legend, while others are named after prominent names, culture, or historical events. For example, the town of Wote, the capital of Makueni County, and the former Eastern Province. Wote town is named after the Kiswahili word for “all”.  

During the colonial era, the town was the command centre for the colonial District Officer, who periodically called meetings for all area residents who would come and gather outside his office to receive instructions. With time the residents concocted the phrase “Wote” about the DC’s periodic summon to all.  

Further down the former Eastern Province is Marsabit whose name has a similar historical connotation as that of Wote. The story is that the name is derived from the Amharic phrase “Marsa Beit” which translates to “Marsa’s home”.

The narration says that there lived a famous, important, hardworking, and benevolent farmer who visited the location so many times, fell in love with it and finally settled around Mount Marsabit’s slopes.  

Locals started referring to his settlement (home) as “Marsa’s home”, which would later evolve into the name of the growing town.  

Today, the former outpost of urban civilisation in the northern Kenya desert, which is situated on an isolated extinct volcano (Mount Marsabit) is known as Marsabit.

Many stories of Kenyan places and locations have been passed down over the years, with some completely changing their original names for new ones, while others have been twisted from their original names for new names that are twisted in pronunciation but are linked to the original names. For instance, Mtito Andei.  

Mtito Andei is named after Mtito wa ndei, a Kikamba phrase, which translates to “forest of vultures”. The story has it that this forest of vultures has a harrowing past dating back to the colonial times of the slave trade.

After “shopping” or conducting raids for the then “hot cake (slaves), in the market, some of those captured were unable to keep up with the trekking due to injuries, illnesses, and other misfortunes encountered.  

The slave traders designated a place in Ukambani where they dumped those who were too weak to make it to the coastal slave markets, and hence unlikely to fetch good prices. This dense forest was the ultimate place to leave such victims to die. Of course, after their death vultures would prey on the bodies, and as is their custom, they would circle above the area of interest.  

The hovering of the scavengers made the locals name the forest “Mtito wa ndei”, and over time the name stuck, and today, the forest and its environs are referred to as Mtito Andei.  

Nairobi, the former “Green City in the Sun”, and the only capital in the world that hosts a National Park within it, was first given the name of Enkare Nyrobi, by the Maasai, which translates to a place of “cool water”.  

The Maasai called it so because the place of cool waters had many rivers and engong’u engare (tributaries) traversing it. It was also home to many enduro (swamps). The Maa used Enkare Nyrobi as a “stopover as they traversed the savannah lands looking for pasture for their livestock.  

One major orlkeju (river) was the now Nairobi River, also a corrupted name borrowed from Nyrobi by the colonialists who were not able to pronounce the Maasai word. Like the Maa, the colonialists found this cool and uninhabited place ideal, and central place to pitch tent for a supply depot of the Mombasa-Uganda Railway.  

Eventually, with the sporadic growth of the supply depot, the settlement grew into an administrative location, and what a better name to call it, than a corrupted version of enkare nyorobi, – thus the latter became Nairobi.  

Later, Nairobi got the nickname “the Green City in the Sun due to its reputation as a healthy environment. In the 70s, the city had a blend of natural forest, savanna grasslands, and three rivers running through it – Ngong River, Mathare River, and Nairobi River.  

Today, Nairobi’s proximity to the Nairobi National Park has earned it the name “the Safari Capital of Kenya”. 

The stories of names of places and locations also touch on realities and corruptions of original words based on their origins in myths and lore. Here are some of them.  

Neighbouring Nairobi is Kiambu. The myth says that Kiambu got its name in connection to the happenings in Murang’a. The myth tells of a story about Murang’a being the original home of the Agikuyu.

Before the dispersal, this home base was known as Mutemi, the dwelling place of Mukurwe wa Nyagathanga, the mythical garden of Eden of the Gikuyu tribe.  

In the 1890s a Kikuyu elder by the name of Karuri wa Gakure gave the order that those accompanying Francis George Hall, the British administrator for the East African Protectorate should use their digging tools known as Muro to dig the land to find a suitable place to build a fort. The instructions were that if they heard the sound of ‘nga’, this would be suitable land for Hall to build a fort.

When their tools made the ‘nga’ sound around the present-day Murang’a, the location was given to Hall, who proceeded to build a Fort. The place was named Muro Nga, which later became Murang’a. In the early 1900s, it was also referred to as Fort Hall by the British in recognition of the administrator who built the fort.  

Lore has it that the people of Fort Hall were governed through tough laws and orders, and those who broke these, would be banished to a land across River Chania.

Their punishment would be being rolled down a hill inside a beehive beyond the river. If they survived the ordeal that rolled them through a series of large rocks to the natural bridge of Ruma-thi, ahead of them lay another catastrophe as behold, the other side of the river was inhabitable.  

Those who crossed over would cry and gnash their teeth, in so much agony from the experience, that the place came to be known as Kia Mbu – the place of cries. In time the survivors grew in numbers and named their exile home in connection to their cries – Kiambu.

In remembrance of their former home, Murang’a they named several other places the names of their former home, which is why, there are several places in Kiambu similar to those in Murang’a.