Akan Names

Structure & order

An Akan person typically holds several names assigned by different principles rather than an inherited family surname. Unlike Western practice, children traditionally do not take the father's last name; each child has their own names. Components:

[DAY-NAME] (+ BY-NAME) [BIRTH-ORDER NAME] [PROPER NAME] (+ brofodin / English-Biblical name)

• Day-name (kradin): one of the bearer's first names, fixed by the day of the week of birth; gendered.
• By-name / appellation: each day-name has an associated by-name (e.g. the day-name Kwadwo carries the by-name Okofo), so a person gets two names from their birth day.
• Birth-order name: e.g. Nsia (sixth-born); Kaakyire ("last-born") given later in life once parents are sure no more children will come.
• Proper name: given after an important person, usually within (occasionally outside) the father's lineage, e.g. the author's proper name Obeng, after his father's aunt Obenewaa.
• brofodin: an optional English or Biblical name (also called a Christian name in Ghana, though not all bearers are Christian and not all Christians have one).
• Only formally Western-educated Akans append the father's name as a juxtaposed middle/last name (e.g. the author's middle name Gyasi, his father's name); this is contrary to traditional Akan practice.

Given names

Given names encode circumstances of birth: the day of the week, time of day, season, birth order, gender, and the parents' situation or attitude may all feed into the name. Names may also mark events or status changes, e.g. Odefo "the wealthy one" on acquiring wealth.

Gender marking. Ordinary Akan names morphologically distinguish male from female forms (e.g. Obeng / Obenewaa; Pipim / Pipimaa).

Day-names (male form followed by female form, with the associated character trait):

The trait is treated as an expectation of the bearer; a Thursday-born male (Yaw) failing to be brave can be reproached: Yaw Barima paa ara na woye hufo sei? "How come you're called Yaw, the brave one, yet you behave like such a coward?"

Family names & patronymics

There is no inherited surname system in the Western sense, children bear their own names, not the father's. Lineage continuity is expressed through the proper name, given after a named ancestor or important person, usually within the father's lineage. Patronymic-style use of the father's name (juxtaposed as a middle/last name) is a modern, Western-education-driven innovation, not traditional Akan practice.

How to address someone

The source does not document a formal salutation/honorific system. It notes that at formal gatherings a person may be introduced with ne din ne ne honam se "that one's name is a reflection of his/her personality and being," and that bearers of death-prevention names are addressed only by those names, never by the concealed proper name, lest it reveal their true identity.

Pitfalls for software

• No inherited surname. Akan children traditionally bear their own names; a father's name appearing as a "last name" signals Western education, not lineage. Parsing software should not assume the final token is an inherited family name.
• Multiple coexisting names (day-name, by-name, birth-order, proper, brofodin); a single person may go by very different names in different contexts.
• Day-names are predictable from birthday and gender and form closed sets, useful as a strong gender/language signal (Kwame/Kwadwo etc. male; Akosua/Adwoa etc. female).
• Death-prevention names break the normal rules: they are sex-neutral (same form for male and female), are often non-Akan/foreign words, name animals, objects, jobs, or whole sentences, and carry deliberately negative or "ugly" surface meanings whose true intent is loving. Their indirectness (sarcasm, satire) is only intelligible with Akan cultural background; outsiders (and software) will misread the literal insult.
• A death-prevention name's literal gloss (e.g. "slave," "trash," "Bury him alive") is the opposite of its pragmatic intent; do not treat the literal content as descriptive of the bearer.