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It Is Wrong For Ònye Ìgbò To Use European Names As Surname

With every new day, there is an increasing number of Ndi Ìgbò, who want to know more about their history, heritage, and the various aspects of our Ọdịnanị na omenani.

This population of Ndi Ìgbò are waking up to the beauty of our cultures and traditions and are expressing their anger and distaste about the encroachment of foreign ideas, cultures, and religion on the Ìgbò worldview.

There are more and more awakened Ìgbò people who want nothing to do with European ideologies, religion, and thoughts. But one thing we have realized is that no matter how much many Ndi Ìgbò speak against colonialism and its effects today in ani Ìgbò, they still maintain and use the names of their oppressors. It is safe to say that about 90% of Ndi Ìgbò go by European names as their first names, and about 20% have replaced their indigenous surnames with European names.

During colonization, the Europeans infiltrated Africa with their Christian missionaries, who preached about Jesus being the way, and how our ways were evil and demonic. They somehow were able to convince our people that European names were better than African names. And soon we had shallow Africans take up the European names and immediately, our identity as Africans started to die. And after almost a century that the Europeans have left, we have Africans who have even gone ahead to drop their indigenous surnames and taken up European first names and surnames.

The invasion of ani Ìgbò by British colonizers & European missionaries forced many Ndi Ìgbò to take the names of their enslavers and oppressors. This abnormality would spread throughout Ìgbò land from the later decades of the 19th, through the 20th, to the 21st century.

In a desperate attempt to convert as many souls for their Jesus Christ, the missionaries convinced some Ndi Ìgbò that our cultures, traditions, spirituality, and even names, were evil. And that for us to become clean and holy, we need to drop our names and take up Christian names ­­­- European names. Our people who were initially converted, and so began the corruption of the minds of great people such as ndi Ìgbò, against their heritage and ancestry. And to date that cancer still eats deep into our fabric as a people.