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ArchivesRe: Why no Australian or South African/ Other African Countries
in reply to a message by Australian SandMan
Can't answer for the rest of the continent, but in South Africa we don't make birth-name data available; even the census info is mined for its data and then destroyed. This means that researchers have to rely on, let's say, school-leaving exam results, which are in the public domain usually, and this gives a small and distinctive group from which I'd hesitate to generalise.
Then of course there's the issue of South Africa having eleven official languages. Many parents who do not have English or Afrikaans as their home language choose to give their children a European as well as an African name as this is felt to be to their advantage when entering the labour market, but as a custom it seems to be dying out. Leaving even more problems for a would-be listmaker.
The most useful - and authoritative - list I know of is:
http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/baby-names-030915.htm#.VwPZ9-SlOM8
As you will see, there is no indication of what language these names appear in; one would assume that there'd be a preponderance of Zulu names, including the closely-related Xhosa and Swazi, but without meanings and geographical areas one isn't left much wiser, frankly. I wish there was more I could suggest. But I'll keep looking.
Then of course there's the issue of South Africa having eleven official languages. Many parents who do not have English or Afrikaans as their home language choose to give their children a European as well as an African name as this is felt to be to their advantage when entering the labour market, but as a custom it seems to be dying out. Leaving even more problems for a would-be listmaker.
The most useful - and authoritative - list I know of is:
http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/baby-names-030915.htm#.VwPZ9-SlOM8
As you will see, there is no indication of what language these names appear in; one would assume that there'd be a preponderance of Zulu names, including the closely-related Xhosa and Swazi, but without meanings and geographical areas one isn't left much wiser, frankly. I wish there was more I could suggest. But I'll keep looking.
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