African Surnames

Map showing approximate spread of Bantu-speaking peoples in sub-Saharan Africa

African surnames or African last names are those names which are held by the very many different ethnic groups inhabiting the African continent. Across such a large region encompassing many cultures and traditions a wide array of surname practices have developed here.

However, there are some general patterns, with Bantu people dominating much of the southern parts of the continent south of the Congo, the Hausa and Yoruba in western and north-western Africa, Cushitic-speaking peoples such as the Oromo covering much of eastern Africa and people of Berber and Arab descent predominating in the Maghreb region north of the Sahara Desert.

There are a great many regional variations involved in the surname practices of these peoples, but the following provides a general overview.

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History of African surnames and naming conventions

African surnames vary greatly depending upon where in the continent a person is and the region’s specific history. Most parts of sub-Saharan Africa had very little sustained contact with the world north of the Sahara for most of recorded history and so have not experienced cross-pollination with naming practices from Europe and the Middle East until recent centuries. Thus, in sub-Saharan Africa a great amount of surnames are derived from the naming practices of the Bantu people, a massive ethno-linguistic grouping who dominate a huge swathe of Africa from the Congo Rainforest and the Great Lakes region all the way south to the Cape of Good Hope. The surnames found here, such as Ilunga and M’Bala are often indicative of one’s descent from a particular tribe or clan, similar in many respects to how surnames have developed in parts of Europe.

Elsewhere, such as north-west Africa, the Yoruba-speaking people have adopted similar practices. However, there are regional variations. For instance, in Nigeria there is often a practice of individuals having two surnames, one taken from their father and the other from their mother. These patterns have also been complicated by the fact that in some regions, notably in countries like Kenya and Uganda which were colonised by the British around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some individuals partially anglicised their surnames.

However, this broad picture of African surnames is complicated by the encroachments of non-African powers into the continent since the seventh century. One notable example of this is the extensive colonisation of the Cape region at the southern tip of the continent by a mix of Dutch, German, French Protestant and then British settlers since the mid-seventeenth century. These generally bear Afrikaans surnames today like Botha, De Beer, Pienaar or Nieuwoudt.

But the much more significant encroachment was by Arab newcomers, beginning with their conquest of the Maghreb region north of the Sahara Desert in the seventh century. Then from approximately the tenth century onwards Muslim traders and colonists from southern Arabia began tip-toeing down the east coast of Africa and spreading Islam into regions like Somalia, Tanzania and Mozambique. Additionally, over a period of centuries Islam also crossed south into the Sahara Desert, the Sahel and beyond, being transmitted along the desert trade routes to cities like Timbuktu and coming to hold extensive influence in modern-day countries like Mali and Nigeria. Hence, Islamic names, which use patronymics like ibn and ibnat (‘son of’ and ‘daughter of’) became the dominant form of surname used in large parts of the north, north-west and east of the continent.

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Most popular surnames and their origins

Map showing penetration of Islam into Africa where Islamic surnames have become common

The most popular African surnames tend to be

• Dlamini – The most common surname in South Africa and surrounding regions with over 300,000 people alone bearing this name in South Africa. The royal House of Eswatini are the House of Dlamini.
• Ilunga – A very common surname in the Congo region, where upwards of one and a half million carry this surname. It is a Bantu name derived from the verb kulunga and means something approximate to ‘one who unites’ or ‘one who brings together’.
• Adeoye – This name, which in Yoruba means ‘crown prince’, is extremely common in Nigeria.
• Tesfaye – Over one million people in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa carry this surname, which in interpreted as meaning ‘my hope’ in the Amharic language.  
• Akello – This surname is extremely common in Uganda, where it is the most widely used surname and borne by over 300,000 people, or one in every 125 people countrywide.
• Otieno – The most widely found surname in Kenya, where approximately 425,000 people bear it, though it is also held by thousands of people in neighbouring or nearby countries in east Africa such as Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. It means, roughly, ‘born at night’.
• Kone – A surname found primarily in north and west Africa in countries like Mali, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. An estimated three and a half million people carry this surname across the region.

Geographical spread of African surnames

The spread of African surnames and their derivation from Bantu languages, Yoruba, Amharic or the penetration of Islam into the continent has been overwhelmingly dictated by geography. By some estimations there are eight distinct geographical regions within the African continent, they being the Maghreb and northern Sahara; the Sahel or southern Sahara; the Ethiopian Highlands and Horn of Africa; the Savanna or Serengeti; the Swahili Coast in eastern Africa; the great Congo Rainforest; the Great Lakes region; and southern Africa. Surnames of Bantu origin are typically to be found across the south of the continent in three of these regions, southern Africa, the Congo Rainforest region and the Great Lakes region. Surnames of Amharic extraction are typically located in the Horn of Africa region which has its own relatively distinct geography around the Ethiopian Highlands. Surnames of Yoruba heritage are found in the distinct regions lying in north-west Africa bordered by the Sahel and Sahara Desert on the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south. Finally, Islamic names tend to be found along the northern and eastern coasts of Africa. These are two of the eight or so distinct geographical regions within the African continent, specifically the Maghreb and northern Sahara region which was conquered for Islam at the height of the Arab conquests, and the Swahili Coast of east Africa which was gradually Islamised during the late medieval and early modern periods as maritime powers such as the Sultans of Oman expanded down the coastline to places such as Zanzibar and Sofala.

Famous people with African surnames

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, whose surname is a Xhosa aristocratic name

Many of the most well-known people from sub-Saharan Africa today grew up within a quasi-Western educational and political system and so many of them carry partially Anglicised or Gallicised names. The following provides explanations of these.

• Nelson Mandela – The hero of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa and the first black head of state there was actually known as Rolihlahla Mandela from birth, Mandela being the Xhosa surname of his particular family from within native South African society and Rolihlahla meaning ‘troublemaker’. He was later given the Christian name Nelson when he was sent to a Methodist school to be educated.
• Chinua Achebe – A giant of African literature whose 1958 novel Things Fall Apart is considered the most significant novel of modern African literature. A native Igbo of Nigeria his surname Achebe means ‘One who is protected by the goddess’.
• Robert Mugabe – A highly controversial Zimbabwean who was one of the foremost leaders of the region’s independence movement from white minority domination, but who later became a highly corrupt and tyrannical ruler of Zimbabwe. The Mugabe surname is derived from a name which was given to the kings of Ankole, a Bantu kingdom in Uganda between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.

See also

• Arab surnames
• Hebrew surnames
• Maltese surnames
• Egyptian surnames
• Moroccan Jewish surnames
• Algerian surnames
• Yemenite Jewish surnames
• Lebanese surnames
• Moroccan surnames
• Middle Eastern and North African surnames

Explore more about African surnames

• Search Your Last Name at MyHeritage
• MyHeritage DNA at MyHeritage
• Ethnicities around the world at MyHeritage
• What Is My Ethnicity? How MyHeritage Estimates Ethnicities at MyHeritage Knowledge Base
• Where's My Ethnicity?!: Why An Ethnicity Might Not Show Up In Your DNA (and How To Find Evidence Of It Anyway) at MyHeritage Knowledge Base

References

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