Inheriting Names – Cameroon Style

During my work for a “Human Ressource Database” I came across something surprising. It seems like a lot of cameroonian families do have a different tradition of naming their children then we do in Europe.

As far as I know it is still mostly the father who gives the family name to the children. But surprisingly he often does no pass his inherited family name from his father. He instead passes his own given name.

Mostly people have three names. First a so called “Christian” name, like Lukas or so. Then they also have something you could call “tribal” or “village” name. At last follows the family name.

So if I make an example, somebody’s name could be “Beatrice Nam Nyaah”. In an German context a name like this could be like “Christian Gerhard Müller” (since Gerhard is actually a name from the German “tribe”).

In Europe the children of Christian will get Müller as their family name, as it was since generations an will be for generations – along the male line.

In Cameroon instead it is often like shown on the picture. It is as if the children get Gerhard as their Family name, instead of Müller.

passing family names in Cameroon (click to enlarge)

The concept of this was at first quite confusing to me. I’ve also been told that sometimes the children get different family names, like some get the name of the mother.

Actually – why not? It somehow reminds me to the names in northern Europe. Doesn’t “Olafson” actuelly mean “son of Olaf”? It must have been the same for the Vikings, back in those times..?