Road to Rwanda.....Names

 

This week I tackled getting my students to coordinate the use of Works Cited with intext citations.  They both require listing the last name of the author.  To my confusion, the results were quite a failure.  The students often listed the authors’ first  or even middle names in formatting their essays??? I am used to the confusion from English as a Second Language students who do not recognize what we would say were American “first names”.  My essays from students in China, did not know that “Bruce” as opposed to “Smith” were given names, not family names.  They simply did not have enough English.  But my students here in Rwanda speak excellent English and recognize, use, and are named English names. I have also been confused ever since I got my student list of names from the school office a year and a half ago.  The class lists alphabetized by the student’s FIRST  name.  This just is not done, but I never got a clear answer.  So, being me, I finally dug deeper. 

When I started asking this week, I realized how completely different Rwandan relationship with names is!  The parents just name their children whatever they want to, regardless of the parents’ or family names.  In fact, I have twins in grade 6 who have different last names!!   Do you understand what I am saying?  There is rarely a clue as to family affiliation in a student’s name!  I was told that they legally usually list their Kinyarwanda names first for legal documents or introducing themselves to other Rwandans.  But within an American context they first say their “musungu” (white) names, which they were given at their christening.  So I know these students by names with which I am very familiar.  I list them in my gradebooks by what I consider their first names….because nothing else makes any sense.

I then went on to reflect on the sequencing of names that I have known in other cultures. Chinese names use the family names first and then your given name.  A woman retains her family name even after she is married, unless she is using “Mrs.” Then she uses her husband’s name. Often, Chinese are given their first names by a former patriarch of the family, many times a few generations back, (a generational index) and then a name that will go with the generational name for the individual.  So you could tell what generation and relationship a person has by their family name and the first part of their given name. Confused yet? (The way Rick and my names are listed in Taiwan make us look more like brother and sister than husband and wife.)

In Ecuador and Panama, usually people say their individual first name and then their father’s name as the surname…and then tack their mother’s last name on at the end.  You understand their lineage much more clearly.

I write all of this just to again confirm that life can be exceptionally confusing.  Who would think that there were so many options in just how we write/choose our names? I can’t say I have any better grasp on my students’ names right now, but I also know that I have to teach them how to manipulate English and other European names if I want my Works Cited and intext citations to be correct by my standards.