Among the Yorùbá people, names are not casual labels. They are compressed histories, spiritual markers, occupational records, and theological statements. A name can reveal the deity a family once served, the profession of its ancestors, the circumstance of a child’s birth, or a prayer spoken into the future. Yet today, many Yorùbá names are confidently explained in ways that are linguistically wrong, tonally inaccurate, and historically impossible.

This loss did not happen by accident. It is the result of tone erosion, obsolete vocabulary, colonial suppression of indigenous institutions, and religious reinterpretation. When the words that formed the roots of names disappeared from everyday speech, younger generations naturally reattached meanings using modern vocabulary that merely sounds similar. Unfortunately, Yorùbá is a tonal language, and similarity of spelling without tonal accuracy is often meaningless.

This article restores some of those forgotten meanings and explains why so many Yorùbá names are misunderstood today.

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Tone: The Silent Destroyer of Meaning

In Yorùbá, tone is not decoration; it is grammar. A change in tone produces a completely different word, unrelated in meaning.

For example:

• Ọ̀rẹ́ (dò–mí) means friend
• Ọrẹ̀ (re–do) refers to a deity

So a name like Oresanya does not mean “friend rewarded me,” but rather derives from Ọrẹ̀, a deity. The old saying “A kìí ọmọ Ọrẹ̀ bọ Ọrẹ̀” (“you do not sacrifice the child of Ọrẹ̀ to Ọrẹ̀”) preserves this forgotten divine identity.

When tone awareness declines, sacred names become ordinary words—and sacred meanings vanish.

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Names Mistaken for Modern Occupations

A classic example is Ọlọ́pàádé.

Today, most young people assume:

• Ọlọ́pà = policeman
• Therefore: “The policeman has arrived”

Even older speakers sometimes say:

• “The owner of the staff has arrived”

Both are incorrect.

Ọlọ́pàádé actually means “the devotee of Ọpa has arrived.”
Ọpa here refers not to a walking staff or police baton, but to Ọpa (re–re)—a deity and cult known as Awo Ọpa, one of the religious institutions proscribed during colonial rule. Names like Opadotun belong to the same tradition and testify that the ancestors of their bearers were devotees of this cult.

When cults were banned, their vocabularies faded. The names survived, but their meanings were reassigned.

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When Even Professors Get It Wrong

Even intellectual brilliance does not protect against linguistic drift.

In The Man Died, Professor Wọlé Ṣóyínká suggested that his surname means “surrounded by wizards,” deriving Ṣóyínká from Oṣó (wizard). Linguistically, this is incorrect.

Names like Ṣóyínká, Sonuga, and other “Ṣó…” names derive not from Oṣó, but from Òrìṣà-Oko, the Yorùbá deity of agriculture.

The original form: Òrìṣà-Oko-yín-ká
gradually declined through phonetic compression to:

• Ṣóókóyínká
• Ṣóyímiká
• Ṣóyínká

Thus, Ṣóyínká means “Òrìṣà-Oko surrounds me.”
This pattern applies across many similar names.

If a Nobel laureate can misunderstand his own name, the depth of the problem becomes clear.

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“Idolatrous” Names and Religious Irony

It is common today for pastors to pressure congregants to abandon names associated with Òrìṣà. Yet many of the names carried proudly by religious leaders are themselves rooted in pre-Christian worship.

Consider Ògúnyẹmí—often targeted because of Ògún. Yet names like Ọbafẹ́mi, Ọbasanjọ́, and Babasanmi are also rooted in indigenous religion.

The Ọba and Baba in these names do not mean “king” or “father” in the modern sense. They derive from Ọbalúaiyé (Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná), the deity of smallpox. Out of reverence and fear, people avoided calling the deity directly and instead used honorifics like Baba. This is why smallpox scars were called Ila-Baba (“father’s marks”).

Thus, rejecting one name while keeping another is not purification—it is inconsistency born of ignorance.

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Names That Sound Morbid but Aren’t

Some names appear disturbing when misinterpreted.

Okusanya, Okusaga
Many assume Òkú = corpse. Wrong.

These names derive from Okù, the Ijẹ̀bú deity of wealth, equivalent to Ajé among the Ọ̀yọ́.
Okùsànyà means “the deity of wealth has rewarded my suffering.”

Similarly:

• Kotoye does not describe insignificance in a literal sense but is an Àbíkú deterrent name, meant to insult the spirit child so it will stay rather than die again.
• Okoya and Ọkọ́ṣẹ́ (“the hoe has broken”) are pleas begging the child not to return to death.

Cruel-sounding names often carried desperate love.

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Occupational and War Titles Hidden in Names

Many Yorùbá names are actually professional titles:

• Olofa – master of arrows (archer)
• Oloko – lord of the spear (warrior)
• Aláásà – bearer of the shield
• Asiwaju – leader of the vanguard
• Sarumi – commander of cavalry
• Seriki – head of junior war chiefs (from Hausa Sarkin)

Others preserve cooperative farming systems now nearly forgotten:

• Olowe – owner of an ọ̀wẹ̀ cooperative
• Alokolaro – owner of a large farm supported by aarọ́ labor groups

These names record economic systems long before modern sociology named them.

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Not Dreams, Snails, or Palm Trees

Some of the most common misunderstandings come from homophones:

• Aláládé does not mean “the dreamer has arrived”
  It means “the devotee of Òrìṣàálá has arrived.”
  Àlà (do–do) is white—Obàtálá’s symbol—not dream.
• Onigbinde does not refer to snails
  Igbin is a sacred drum for Òrìṣàálá worship.
• Opetola is not about palm trees
  Ọ̀pẹ̀ (do–do) is an Ifá appellation.

Without tonal literacy, meaning collapses.

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Why This Knowledge Matters

Names are not merely personal; they are archives. When meanings are lost:

• Families lose ancestral memory
• History becomes distorted
• Culture becomes shallow
• Identity becomes negotiable

Restoring the meanings of Yorùbá names is not about returning to worship; it is about truth, history, and self-knowledge.