Emily's Worldview

I wrote previously about the Kikuyu system of naming, but I recently learned about the Luo system for last names, which I think is even better because it is completely random. Basically, you get your last name based on what time of day you were born. I’m not up on the literature, so I don’t know if being born at certain times runs in families, but essentially, if you were born in the afternoon you get a certain last name, and if your sister was born late at night, she gets a different one. If you are a girl, it starts with a, but if you are a boy it starts with o, and that’s it.

First names are funny too; most of them are Anglo but pretty old-fashioned so that all the women sound like 1950s housewives—Phyllis, Eunice, Gladys, and Beatrice are all popular. I wonder if these are the names that missionaries and colonists had and handed out, and what happened to the names that babies used to get.