The study of names is called onomastics,it is a Greek work that sounds like Onome.it is a field that touches on linguistics, history, anthropology, sociology, philology and much more.
Questions on omasticians try to answer about given names include:
* What they mean - their etymology or origin.
* How they affect the people, their cultures.
* Why names are chosen.
This is not intended to be a controversial essay but again as always to provoke us into thought...I will try as permit-able to make common sense of the issues that I would raise, and also task our mental reasoning and maybe this little contribution in the near future would be part of the process to building a new nation, call it a nation named freedom, a nation with meaning. This essay is not as academic as it may sound; it is done with the love of nation and believe that we all can contribute towards a redefining of this nation of ours.
Etymology is the study of the origins of words. The etymology of a word is its linguistic history. The word etymology comes to us from the Ancient Greek Language. It is composed of two parts: the Greek word etymon, which means "the true sense of a word", combined with the Greek element logia, which means "doctrine, study". Combining these two parts gives us "the study of the true sense of words", which can be said to be the 'meaning' of the word etymology.
So my first question would what is the etymology of the word Nigeria, while we ponder on that, my research showed the country's name first appeared in print in The Times in 1897 and was suggested by the paper's colonial editor Flora Shaw who would later marry Fredrick Lugard, the first Governor General of the Amalgamated Nigeria. The name comes from a combination of the words "Niger" (the country's longest river) and "Area". Its adjective form is Nigerian, which should not be confused with Nigerien for Niger.
The origin of the name Niger is unknown. It is often assumed that it derives from the Latin word for "black", niger, but there is no evidence for this, and it would have been more likely for Portuguese explorers to have used their own word, negro, or preto as they did elsewhere in the world; in any case the Niger is not a blackwater river. The name is thus thought to be indigenous, but no convincing origin has been found among the 30 languages of the Niger delta and lower reaches of the river. One hypothesis is that it comes from the Tuareg phrase gher n gheren "river of rivers" (shortened to ngher), originating in the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu.
The nations of Nigeria and Niger are named after the river. The people who live along it have a variety of names for it, notably Jeliba in Manding and Isa Ber "big river" in Songhay. The Romans had heard of the Niger and called it Dasibari; the middle and lower course of the Niger was also known as Quorra, also of unknown origin.
In writing this essay I spoke to a number of historians, spoke with Nigerians and no one could give me a satisfactory explanation, definition, in one word no one could give me the etymology of the name Nigeria, the common thread was that the name was given to us by Flora Shaw, it means Niger Area and I asked how many of us would name our kids Abuja, Lagos or Kaduna Area because they were born close those places or would we just address our pet as obajoke or athiefku without as much as knowing the origin of the names.
What is in a name, why is it that Matthews, Joshuas, Solomons, Peters, in our political landscape have not behaved to name. Can someone show me a stealing or a corrupt government official and I will tell you the history, the origin, anthropology and philosophy of the name whether Muslim, Christian or Pagan and the question then is why are they like they are. Do they respect the values that the names stand for, and talking about values, what value does the name Nigeria stand for?
Is it because we do not know the meaning of Nigeria or could it be because we do not know the origin of the name that we have attached a phenomenon to it called the Nigerian myth or the Nigerian factor...I looked up the web and got a search engine to do me a search on nation, names and their meanings, I did this via a random sampling and my find was noteworthy. When I entered the name Nigeria, the laughable shock was I actually got close, I saw the name Nkiru, an Igbo name and I could not but shake my head.
For the name Ghana, it had both the Arabic and indigenous meaning, from Warrior King, Kings land to gold, precious stones and what have you. It was very explanatory as regards origin, linguistics, and much more, it stretched to now Ivory Coast and talked about similarities in meaning with Togo. Sadly there was nothing on Nigeria.
I almost want to say at this point that hence Nigeria has no meaning, can we not start to give it an etymology, after all what we want as Nigerians are simple, a Nigeria that is as good as its promise. We need a Nigeria that is a definition of principles, of idealism, of character, not birthplace, creed, ethnic group or tribe. This lack of origin is one that has led to a weakness of attitude, which translates to weakness of character.
Our name Nigeria has left a sour taste in the mouth right from time, we have become fanatical, we cannot change our mind, we cannot change the subject, so we are still grappling with the same problems, only the styles that change and new terminologies developed but the ideology be it corruption or ethnicity it remains largely the same. So our culture has been shaped by the Nigerian factor, one that we have been forced to develop for lack of direction, for lack of a beginning. So as a nation we have continued with a culture of indifference.
When we do not know the meaning of our name, we do not know why it was chosen, our case can then be only likened to getting a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Telling our leaders who are Nigerians to tell the truth is like un-Nigerianizing them, they lie about everything, they are loved for what they are not, they speak of changing Nigeria, but they are not changing. For lack of an origin, because we do not know the why of Nigeria, we have leaders that have integrity without knowledge, thus they are weak and useless, the other lot possesses knowledge without integrity and this equally portends danger and a dreadful end.
Do we appreciate Nigeria, if we do not, we do not deserve it, we want the Nigeria of our dreams, with this and that, with leadership made in heaven but we have refused to go back and ask patiently what is Nigeria, who is Nigeria, what makes Nigeria? Today it is all talk about reforms, anti-corruption, dividends of democracy, yet we forget that these are not new, no one catches a fish in anger. That Nigeria has gone wrong, should we also go wrong with Nigeria, can we not help Nigeria take a new meaning, animals do not hate and we are supposed to be better than them.
To our leaders, the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good. For us the ordinary Nigerians we cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. We cannot start to give a new meaning to this structure called Nigeria, we have to change it from a Niger area of corruption, an area of lawlessness, an area of bad leadership to an area of hope, an area of godly expectation, an area where all and sundry are treated fair and square. In contemporary Nigeria we have continued to exhibit that we have neither history nor heritage apart from all the scatters of cultures from Odua to Arewa, Biafra to South-South.
Source: gamjil.com
Now lets take talk about the great woman that named us
Flora ShawFlora, Lady Lugard, DBE (born 19 December 1852 – 25 January 1929) was a British journalist and writer.She is credited with having coined the name "Nigeria".
Early Life
Flora Louisa Shaw was born at 2 Dundas Terrace, Woolwich, the fourth of fourteen children, the daughter of an English father, Captain (later Major General) George Shaw, and a French mother, Marie Adrienne Josephine (née Desfontaines; 1826–1871), a native of Mauritius.[1] She had nine sisters, the first and last dying in infancy, and four brothers. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Frederick Shaw, third baronet (1799–1876), of Bushy Park, Dublin, and a member of parliament from 1830 to 1848, regarded as the leader of the Irish Conservatives. Her paternal grandmother, Thomasine Emily, was the sixth daughter of the Hon. George Jocelyn, and granddaughter of Robert, first earl of Roden.
Writing for children
Between 1878–86 Shaw wrote five novels, four for children and one for young adults. In her books, young girls are encouraged to be resourceful and brave, but in a traditional framework, acting in support of "gentlemanly" fathers and prospective husbands rather than on their own behalf. Shaw's ideology is both sexually conservative and Imperialist.[4]
Castle Blair: A story of youthful days (First published London, 1877)[4]
Hector, a story (First serialized in Aunt Judy's Magazine, 1880-1881)[4]
Phyllis Browne (First serialized in Aunt Judy's Magazine, 1881-1882)[4]
A Sea Change (First published London, 1885)[4]
Colonel Cheswick's Campaign (Boston, 1886).[5]
Her first children's novel, Castle Blair, was translated into several languages and continued to be extremely popular in the UK and US well into the 20th century. It was based on her own Anglo-Irish childhood experiences. Charlotte Yonge recommended it along with works of "some of the most respected and loved authors available in late Victorian England" as "wild ... attractive and exciting".[4] The critic John Ruskin called Castle Blair "'good and lovely, and true'".[6]
Shaw also wrote a history of Australia for children, The story of Australia (London : Horace Marshall, 1897) as part of the Story of the Empire series.[7]
Journalism
She began her career in journalism in 1886, writing for the Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian.[8] She was sent by the Manchester Guardian newspaper as the only woman reporter to cover the Anti-Slavery Conference in Brussels. She became Colonial Editor for The Times, making her the highest paid woman journalist of the time.[8][9] In this connection the paper sent her as a special correspondent to Southern Africa in 1892 and in 1901, and to Australia and New Zealand in 1892, partly in order to study the question of Kanaka labour in the sugar plantations of Queensland. She also made two journeys to Canada, in 1893 and 1898, the second of which included a journey to the gold diggings of Klondike.[10][11]
Her belief in the positive benefits of the British Empire infused her writing. As a correspondent for The Times, Shaw sent back "Letters" during 1892–93 from her travels in South Africa and Australia, later published in book form as Letters from South Africa (1893). Writing for the educated governing circles, she focused on the prospects of economic growth and political consolidation of these self-governing colonies within an increasingly united British Empire, a vision largely blinkered to the force of colonial nationalisms and local self-identities.[9] These lengthy articles in a leading daily newspaper reveal a late-Victorian era metropolitan imagery of colonial space and time. Shaw projected vast empty spaces awaiting energetic English settlers and economic enterprise. Observing new landscapes from a rail carriage, for example, she selected images which served as powerful metaphors of time and motion in the construction of racial identities.[12] Her appointment as Colonial Editor for The Times allowed her to travel throughout the British Empire.[9]
A little known aspect of her prominent career was that when she first started writing for The Times, she wrote under the name of F. Shaw, trying to disguise the fact that she was a woman. Later she was so highly regarded, it did not matter and she wrote openly as Flora Shaw, and she was regarded as one of the greatest journalists of her time, specialising in politics and economics.
Zebehr Pasha
Shaw first took advantage of a journalistic opportunity while staying with family friends, the Younghusbands, while in Gibraltar in 1886. There, over a period of four months, she visited Zebehr Pasha, a slaver and former Sudanese governor, who was incarcerated there. Her reports purportedly led to his release.[9][13]
Jameson Raid
Flora was required to testify before the House of Commons Select Committee on British South Africa during the political controversy surrounding the Jameson Raid into the Transvaal on 29 December 1895. She had corresponded frequently with those involved or suspected of involvement, including Cecil Rhodes, Leander Starr Jameson, Colonel Francis Rhodes, and the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. She was exonerated from all charges
Naming Nigeria:
In an essay which first appeared in The Times of London on 8 January 1897 by "Miss Shaw", she suggested the name "Nigeria" for the British Protectorate on the Niger River. In her essay Shaw was making a case for a shorter term that would be used for the "agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States" that was functioning under the official title, "Royal Niger Company Territories". She thought that the term "Royal Niger Company Territories" was too long to be used as a name of a Real Estate Property under the Trading Company in that part of Africa. She was in search of a new name and she coined "Nigeria" in preference to terms such as "Central Sudan" that were associated with the area by some geographers and travellers. She thought that the term "Sudan" at this time was associated with a territory in the Nile basin, the current Sudan. She then put forward this argument in The Times of 8 January 1897 thus: "The name Nigeria applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours be accepted as co-extensive with the territories over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence, and may serve to differentiate them equally from the colonies of Lagos and the Niger Protectorate on the coast and from the French territories of the Upper Niger."Lady Lugard
Shaw was close to the three men who most epitomised empire in Africa: Cecil Rhodes, George Goldie and Frederick Lugard.In 1902 she married the colonial administrator, Sir Frederick Lugard, who became Governor of Hong Kong (1907–1912) and Governor-General of Nigeria (1914–1919); they had no children.[11]
In 1905 Shaw wrote what remains the definitive history of Western Sudan and the modern settlement of Northern Nigeria, A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Soudan, With an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria (London: Nisbet, 1905).
While they lived in Hong Kong she helped her husband to establish the University of Hong Kong. During the First World War, she was prominent in the founding of the War Refugees Committee, which dealt with the problem of the Belgian refugees, and founded the Lady Lugard Hospitality Committee. In 1918, she was appointed as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
She died of pneumonia on January 25, 1929, aged 76, in Surrey.
Source: Wikipedia