The Semiotics of Naming

Why my name is Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi

Photo by Aleruchi Kinika.

From birth, I was given five names. Four, actually, but I realised later I could adopt the last one for myself. When I was young, my siblings, and some family members around me, denied me from knowing all of those names, despite being just four. I only knew one, and then my surname: Adedimeji Ahmad. At primary school, my friends used to mention about three to five other names after mentioning their first and last names. I was jealous and when I asked my mother and siblings about my other names, they assured me I’d know later. There were a lot of things they shielded from me. Things wey be say when I later found out what they were became overwhelming and shaped and reshaped my perspective towards life.

I was three months old in my mother’s womb when my father died. They didn’t tell me this. They never tried to tell me because they felt I was too young to know. Whenever I asked where my father was, they said he was abroad. They should have thought of a better lie because till I found out about his death, I regarded my father as a coward who neglected his family and travelled out. Even, many years after I found out, I still blamed him for the share of poverty I experienced because when he was alive, he was very influential. Influential, not to the extent of being super wealthy, but to the extent of establishing a household name for himself in our hometown. Anyone who is familiar with and understands Iwo’s history would understand who Adedimeji is.

Because I was born six months after his demise, I inherited his names. But nobody knew beyond “Ahmad and Muhaly.” Or maybe they knew but didn’t add them. So they added two other traditional names, “Amobi and Babatunde” which makes it four names. When he returned from his second pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia by foot, he was titled “Adedimeji”, which is “Ade Mecca di meji” and means “the crown of his pilgrimage has become two.” At the time, aeroplanes were not used so it was a privilege and luxury if anyone travelled to the holy land. But he travelled twice. So my name is: Adedimeji Ahmad Muhaly Amobi Babatunde.

But I didn’t know this until I found a piece of paper in my mother’s wardrobe one day. As a culture, on the day of the naming ceremony, the baby’s name is typed on small pieces of paper and shared with the audience as the name is being pronounced. It was that paper that I found. I kept it to myself and never mentioned or asked anyone. I had realised that the answers to my questions and curiosities were wrapped in lies and deceit. So I stopped asking.

When I was resuming a new session in primary school, I wrapped all my notebooks and textbooks in calendar sheets to protect their covers. On the plain front page, I wrote all the names that I found on that piece of paper. When my older siblings saw this, they scolded the younger (older) siblings for telling me what I wasn’t ready to know yet.

But as I have read numerous times, in Africa, one of the determinants of existence is our names; you do not call our names like ordinary words. When my elder brother gave birth to his second child, a daughter, my mother gave her two out of her own other names. The little girl died before she clocked five. The question one of my other elder brothers asked was “Why would you give that little girl our mother’s name?” It is like pounding the heavy loads of an elderly person on her. Not only was she given the name, but she was commonly called one out of the two names: Ayoka.

While my family tried to hide my name from me, thinking they were protecting me, they did not realise that they were shielding and pulling me out of what I am and what I can be. “Babatunde” means our father is back and “Amobi” means someone we’ve known before his birth. Hiding my name made me feel I was just an ordinary boy who could become whatever I could. They pulled me out of my heritage and instead of me to be curious about why I am Babatunde, which would lead me to my father and eventually a purpose for myself, I was living out of purpose: I ran out of school countless times. I was reported at home for being troublesome at school. There was a time when I vowed not to pursue Arabic education any further. And one of the things my father spent his life on was acquiring Arabic knowledge and its dissemination.

Carl Jung said, “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents." While I thought naming me my father’s name seemed like they expected me to continue my father’s life, which, when I think about it now, I believe is why my siblings tried to shield it from me, it also led me to my purpose. It made me realise that I am a child with a path that needs to be followed. My father established the first Arabic school in Osun State at a time when Western education was seducing every parent and child. He was an Arabic scholar and one of the most revered Islamic scholars of his time. So no, I can’t live like an ordinary person and run out of school. I can’t vow not to pursue Arabic education because that is who I am. 

These days, most of my personal projects focus on researching more about my father. There is a part of me that believes that when I know him and what he spent his life doing, I could juxtapose my present and future. Maybe not exactly to become what he was, but to understand how well I can become whatever I choose to become. It’s one thing to be named something, it’s another thing to understand the essence or significance of what you’re named after, even if those who named you are oblivious to its relativity. A name, to me, is not just a name. A name is a direction towards becoming.