New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesRe: N'Dea
in reply to a message by Anneza
We named our daughter N'Dea when she was born back in 1995. The emphasis is on the first syllable, so it's pronounced N-dee-uh. From what I was told by a friend of ours from Africa, it is of East African origin, and it means "the day of". We paired it with her middle name, Ayanna, which means "the beautiful flower". She is every bit of this name. I hope all went well in your name search!
1
Replies
Since there are more languages and language families in Africa than anywhere else, I may be being too cynical, but the most common east African languages have nothing like that for "day". "Day" is siku in Swahili, usuku in Zulu and Xhosa. N'dea "sounds like" "(the) day of", so let's be generous and say they misheard. According to A comparative study of the Bantu and semi-Bantu languages by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston however, N'dea is the Taveta (the text has Taveita so the spelling is suspect, but it's a Bantu language of Kenya) word for Giraffe and so is related to Swahili Twiga, giraffe.
2