Meanings of Names               

Sun set in Senegal

            How wonderful is your name? Do you like your name? Cheikh is the name that my parents give me when I was born. A week after my birth my parents did a ceremony to celebrate their new baby. Family members, friends, and neighbors was invited. My dad bought a sheep and a lot of food for the celebration. At 9 am he prayed for me and pronounced my name out loud for the first time. My aunts and uncles call me Pacheikhou which is my nickname. Pa is from papa which means Dad in French. Cheikh is an Arabic name. It means chief. I was named after my grandfather who is from Mali, a country in West Africa. In Senegal where I am from, parents name their children after people they like the most. It is an honor for my grandfather.

Rice and meat

In my culture, Cheikh is a very popular name. It is also very easy to pronounce. Since I came to the USA, I realize that my name is not easy to say. There are many advantages that your name meaning can offer. Some people at work cannot say my name correctly and some other call me Pikachu which I like. With a customer service job, my name helps me to start a conversation with customers because they are curious to know how to say it.

 I learned a lot about names and culture during my few years in the USA. In my experience, some folks get very offended when you mispronounce their name which I don’t mind. In my culture names aren’t a big deal in the society. Some folks can have multiple nicknames. People mispronounce your name. They make jokes about it. In the USA people want to be called by their name. No joke about it which is understandable.

Baptism

 In Senegal, names represent an ethnicity or a spiritual belongs. For example, Paul is most often a Christian name. Ngor is an Serer name. Serer is a Senegalese ethnic group. When you go in a Serer region if your name is Ngor people will consider you like one of their family members. Another interesting aspect about names such as Cheikh is it gives me the opportunities to explain how interesting is my culture, and how our names are picked. Finally, I think names are a code which describe your culture, your spiritual beliefs, but not the description of yourself.

  The hat represent an ethnically group