By Akin Owolabi
The most basic thing about a person is name. You cannot
claim to know a person intimately unless you know him by
name. Many erroneously claim to know the True God even
without knowing His personal name. One of the worst
plagues that can afflict a man is to be hazy about his own name
even without knowing it. Another truism is that formal education
tries to improve its recipient to the degree to which individuals imbibe
it. So it could be said to a high level of certitude that the higher
an individual’s education the more enlightened he tends to be.
It is however nauseating that Western education, which is the
yardstick for measuring the rise above illiteracy, is currently playing
yo-yo on an important facet of its creation through the use of multiple
names of every individual that is in its warm embrace. How?
Deep into human history, names are simple and uncomplicated.
So we know individuals, even in Bible times, by their personal
names. We know the first man by the name Adam and his wife
simply as Eve, not even Mrs. Eve Adam.
Adam’s children bore their personal names – Cain and Abel –
without the encumbrance of a suffix. Ditto for Noah, his children,
Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon and the rest whose progeny all bore
their personal names.
Surname is simply an after-event which means something being
added as supplement to the real thing. So, it is the additional name
that is sur-joined to the personal name of the individual. But very
curious development has cropped up along the line to viciously
disrupt the simple art of nomenclature and the very vehicle for
enlightenment – formal education – is the one toppling the apple
cart in very insidious way.
The school system has successfully turned the surname to the
first and vice versa. The school system from basic through secondary
provides that the father’s name be written first before the pupil/
student’s. This has unwittingly reversed the art of naming to the
extent that a sizable number of educated Nigerians are putting the
art’s cap askew. This may be curious but it is true.
An academic deputy vice chancellor of a Federal university has
his surname written first on his complimentary card; the middle
name next and the first – personal name – last without indicating
which is which to those not familiar with his credentials. A guest
lecturer on a germane topic, who is also the head of a department
in one of the private universities, did not object to his name being
printed on the lecture booklet with the father’s name coming first
and an abbreviated personal name second. Subsequent mentions
in the preface to the presentation added a third name, presumably
middle, last leaving the first written name constant to suggest that
it was the surname. A simple punctuation would have resolved the
The delegates at a seminar for senior administrative staff of a
tertiary institution were asked to write their names before the commencement
of a presentation. The paper on which the names were
written was passed round for the delegates to underscore their
surnames. The exercise revealed that more than 40 per cent underlined
the first names on the sheet even without initially indicating
that such were their fathers’ or families’.
Primary and secondary pupils are in the habit of putting their
surnames before their personal ones with many compounding
the two with a hyphen. This abnormality has scaled the walls of
the three tiers of the educational system and made deep inroad to
the larger society. What began like an incipient and could easily
be shaken off by the older generation school products has today
become torrents and avalanche and is fast donning the togas of
norm and ascending the platform of decency.
It is not clear where the dis-juncture in names writing crept
from the classrooms into the workplace but one thing is true – the
anomaly was not sudden. It was insipid and surreptitious. Reversal
of the inherent tardiness may be verging the impossible in view of
its having climbed up to the upper crust of the academy and the
workplace. It is not uncommon for people to be called Mister So,
So and So using their first names whereas the prefix – Mr. should
address the person by the surname. This may appear trifling but
with damning psychological damage to the social fabric of a society,
signposting a society cruising on the fast lane to severe cultural lag.
Putting the surname first is not a crime. Many establishments
often request that candidates’ biodata should be preceded by surnames.
Individuals may choose to push their family names to the
fore but the rules guiding this must be strictly adhered to. Writing
surnames first suggests that such should either be set off by a coma
or all letters written in capital letters or the surname underscored.
Either of these three steps suffices but their absence is the contraption
that has impelled this piece. The Holy Scriptures say: “Let
those who have ears listen to what the spirit says.” Can You Write
Your Name … Correctly?
The most basic thing about a person is name. You cannot claim
to know a person intimately unless you know him by name. Many
erroneously claim to know the True God even without knowing His
personal name. One of the worst plagues that can afflict a man is
to be hazy about his own name even without knowing it. Another
truism is that formal education tries to improve its recipient to the
degree to which individuals imbibe it. So it could be said to a high
level of certitude that the higher an individual’s education the more
enlightened he tends to be.
It is however nauseating that Western education, which is the
yardstick for measuring the rise above illiteracy, is currently playing
yo-yo on an important facet of its creation through the use of multiple
names of every individual that is in its warm embrace. How?
Deep into human history, names are simple and uncomplicated.
So we know individuals, even in Bible times, by their personal
names. We know the first man by the name Adam and his wife
simply as Eve, not even Mrs. Eve Adam.
Adam’s children bore their personal names – Cain and Abel –
without the encumbrance of a suffix. Ditto for Noah, his children,
Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon and the rest whose progeny all bore
their personal names.
Surname is simply an after-event which means something being
added as supplement to the real thing. So, it is the additional name
that is sur-joined to the personal name of the individual. But very
curious development has cropped up along the line to viciously
disrupt the simple art of nomenclature and the very vehicle for
enlightenment – formal education – is the one toppling the apple
cart in very insidious way.
The school system has successfully turned the surname to the
first and vice versa. The school system from basic through secondary
provides that the father’s name be written first before the pupil/
student’s. This has unwittingly reversed the art of naming to the
extent that a sizable number of educated Nigerians are putting the
art’s cap askew. This may be curious but it is true.
An academic deputy vice chancellor of a Federal university has
his surname written first on his complimentary card; the middle
name next and the first – personal name – last without indicating
which is which to those not familiar with his credentials. A guest
lecturer on a germane topic, who is also the head of a department
in one of the private universities, did not object to his name being
printed on the lecture booklet with the father’s name coming first
and an abbreviated personal name second. Subsequent mentions
in the preface to the presentation added a third name, presumably
middle, last leaving the first written name constant to suggest that
it was the surname. A simple punctuation would have resolved the
The delegates at a seminar for senior administrative staff of a
tertiary institution were asked to write their names before the commencement
of a presentation. The paper on which the names were
written was passed round for the delegates to underscore their
surnames. The exercise revealed that more than 40 per cent underlined
the first names on the sheet even without initially indicating
that such were their fathers’ or families’.
Primary and secondary pupils are in the habit of putting their
surnames before their personal ones with many compounding
the two with a hyphen. This abnormality has scaled the walls of
the three tiers of the educational system and made deep inroad to
the larger society. What began like an incipient and could easily
be shaken off by the older generations school products has today
become torrents and avalanche and is fast donning the togas of
norm and ascending the platform of decency.
It is not clear where the dis-juncture in names writing crept
from the classrooms into the workplace but one thing is true – the
anomaly was not sudden. It was insipid and surreptitious. Reversal
of the inherent tardiness may be verging the impossible in view of
its having climbed up to the upper crust of the academy and the
workplace. It is not uncommon for people to be called Minster So,
So and So using their first names whereas the prefix – Mr. should
address the person by the surname. This may appear trifling but
with damning psychological damage to the social fabric of a society,
signposting a society cruising on the fast lane to severe cultural lag.
*Owolabi, journalist and former newspaper editor,
is based in Ota
