Akan “Godly” Names
KOFI AYIM
Akan names, like names in several other African cultures, are not mere labels or tags. Rather, they are, as in ancient Egypt, part of the spiritual whole of a person, and often express qualities that the person is expected to possess.
Akan first names are soulful in nature. A soul name, or kradin, denotes the day of the week on which one was born. Each day has both a male and female name. For example, Yaa is a female born on a Thursday. A male born on the same day would be Yaw.
Soul names and their corresponding appellations are popularly used by the Akan to complete a name structure. For example, an appellation of Yaw is Preko; a boy born on Thursday could have Yaw Preko as his full and complete name.
Name appellations are sometimes used to replace soul names. Thus, a person with Mensah as a last name could be called Ogyam Mensah, since Ogyam is the appellation of Kwabena, a Tuesday-born male.
Akan last names are chosen for various reasons. A child can be named after the father, grandparents, or uncle, all from the father’s side of the family, or an outside role model or mentor. A father can also decide to name a child after someone from the mother’s side of the family.
In fact, the Akuapem people (an Akan sub-group) expect the third child to be named after one of the father’s in-laws; the first two children are customarily named after the man’s father and mother.
Because children do not automatically take their fathers’ last names, it is common to find children of the same parents with different last names. A child can be named after a non-family member who might have done a favor or helped the child’s father during some point in his life.
This kind of naming is an honor within the Akan nation. The person the child is named after automatically gains the status of a grandparent, alongside the child’s natural grandparents.
Two interesting points usually glossed over need mention here. In Akan tradition, the Creator is known by the epithet Onyankopon Kwame (God of Saturday), because the Akan believe God’s Day is Saturday.
In traditional prayers, the first entity to be called is Onyankopon Twereduampong Kwame (Dependable Almighty God of Saturday). Other accolades and appellations of God include Odom-Ankama or Odomankoma (omnipotence), Borebore (divine sculptor), etc.
In response to greetings, a Saturday-born person when greeted should respond “Yaa amen” (the response to the God of Saturday). The god Amen (the Zeus of Greece and the Jupiter of Rome) was originally of the Ethiopian Kushite religion. Thus, Onyankopon’s spirit was Amen.
According to Gerald Massey, the word “amen” was used by ancient Egyptians as a call to come or a reference to the “the coming one.” It must be remembered that the popularity and prominence of Amen peaked during the New Kingdom.
The response to greetings of an Akan born on a Saturday further proves the correlation of the God of Saturday to Amen. Moreover, the appellation for one born on a Saturday is Atoapoma, (woto no a na woapem), “there is nothing beyond God.”
Atoapoma is also the shooter of a stick in the form of a ray to animate the soul of the child upon birth. It is Nyame, incarnated as the moon, that shoots the ray and therefore assumes the title Atoapoma. Consequently, Nyame’s appellation is also Amen.
Akhenaten (1352-1338 BCE), son of Amenhotep III, introduced the belief in only one god called Aten, God of the sun. According to Osman, the Aten name dated from the 12th Dynasty, especially during the reign of Thutmosis IV who made Joseph (born in 1564, died 1454 B.C.) prime minister of Egypt in 1534 B.C. at age 30 (according to Greenberg).
A son of Thuthmosis IV, Amenhotep III built a temple in Nubia for the Aten god, imaged in the visible celestial solar disk. Aten, like the present-day Akan god Nyame but unlike other Egyptian gods, had no image of representation.
This cosmic god, like the biblical Yahweh, became the one and jealous god of Egypt. Ahmed Osman tells us that Aten was also introduced in the southern part of Kush (i.e., Nubia, the Land of the Kush) as well as in northern Syria.
The name Akhenaten, according to Sir Petrie, means “the glory of Aten.” The word aten is used in the Twi language to mean “judgment” because he, the only one God, can judge. There is no doubt whatsoever that the ancestors of the present-day Akan were familiar with the Theban gods of Amen and Aten in Upper Egypt.
An earlier group from the Memphite era was also probably familiar with the Osirian sun god under Pharaoh Kufu.
It must be noted that the original Egyptian name of Memphis was Mamfe–from Men-nefer. Mamfe is also the name of a town in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Near Mamfe, in Akropong, was an earlier king named Akuffo whose name was derived from the great Egyptian Kufu, son of Snefru and Hetep-Heres.
As remarked elsewhere the Asante have a horn called Aten-te-ben, “Aten’s (hearing) horn.” The Hebraic word for the Egyptian Aten is Adon, “Lord,” a contraction form of Adonai.
Massey tells us that Aten = Adon = Adonai. Adona in the Twi language is a good-natured or merciful person. Thus, Adon and Aten are one and the same in different cultures. Adonten, an Akan name is formed from Adon and Aten, Adon’ten.
Another point worth noting is the god Amma, of the Dogon civilization of present-day Mali. (The Dogon had a deep knowledge of the Sirius, or what the Egyptians called Shopdu, and could chart the course of the bright star with the naked eye.)
In Akan, Amma is a female born on Saturday and therefore has the same appellation as Kwame. The Dogon Amma, the goddess of water and rain, was, according to Laird Scranton a self-created one true goddess, with similar attributes to the Egyptian god Amen.
Amen was a god of Egypt and Amma was a goddess of the Mandingo. The response to greetings of Amma, a Saturday-born female in Akan, is Amen She also had a son, Nummo. In fact, Amma was known in the Nile Valley as Amon or Amon-Ra.
The Thursday-born soul names Yaw and Yaa also present unique characteristics. Iu was the son of Ptah; later the name was written in various forms by ancient people such as the Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Greek as Iau, Yau, Yahu, Yahwe (Yweh) etc.
Churchward tells us that Iu dates as far back as 6000 B.C. If the name of Iu, the son of Ptah, was rendered as above, then logically Iu could also be rendered by latter-day people as Yaw.
If Iao (Yahweh) is Yaw, the god of heavens, then Yaa–the female counterpart–is the god of the earth, what is commonly termed by the Akan as Asaase Yaa (Mother Earth) since heaven is the antithesis of earth.
Humankind is sandwiched between the dual forces of heaven, Onyankopon Twereduapon Kwame (Dependable Almighty God, whose day is Saturday and presumed to be a male) and Asaase Yaa (Goddess of Earth, whose day is Thursday).
Of the seven soul names of the Akan, Yaw and Yaa (as gods) are the only ones philologically and etymologically separate from the rest.
In pre-Christian times, there were numerous gods (not equally well known or recognized, of course), of which Yahweh emerged as the most popular and powerful.
Each of the soul names has its affiliated sacred names. For example, if an Akan is born on the Tuesday preceding Awukudae, sacred Wednesday, he or she could be called Kwabena or Abena Dapaa, respectively.
Similarly Kwaku or Akua could be added to Addae, for those preceding a sacred Thursday as Kwaku Addae or Akua Addae, or born on a sacred Wednesday (Awukudae). Those born on a Saturday preceding a sacred Sunday Akwasidae are Amma and Kwame Dapaa; similarly, on a sacred Monday Adwoa and Kwadwo Fodwoo, and Afua and Kofi Fofie for those born on a sacred Friday.
It should be noted here, though, that the Akan Onyankopon has no shrine because He is deemed invisible. And because He cannot be seen physically, he has no ritual or celebrated days, no altar, no priests, and therefore no rites.
To go a step further, the Akan gave every white man the soul name of Kwasi because the white man was known to worship his god on Sunday.
Source: Akan of Ghana: Aspects of Past & Present Practices by Kofi Ayim
Published March 2015