What is the story of your name? The answer to this question is always deeply personal, touching on family history.

We asked community members to email or tweet an interesting story about their name, with no format restriction. Though the contest launched about a month ago was titled ‘My Name, My Story’, upon reading the pieces, it becomes clear that it would have been more aptly dubbed ‘My name, Our Story’, so deeply embedded they are in a larger context.

Two of the winners have already received their prizes, a YorubaName.com T-shirt…and sent back photographic evidence !

Below are excerpts from the winning entries.

Stephen Adewale Oluwarotimi Ajayi

My names are Stephen Adewale Oluwarotimi Ajayi.

From the moment I could read and write my mother never missed the opportunity to tell me how special I was to her. She had gotten married at a young age (as they all did back then) but was unable to bear a child for my father in the first 6 years. She was getting pregnant though, just wasn’t able to carry to term.
In the 7th year of her marriage I came. Oh yeah, my father came from a line of Adeyemi’s, which means ‘the crown befits me’ so he instantly named me Stephen, which according to my findings means ‘crown’ and then he added Adewale, which means ‘the crown has come home’.
The 6 years drought my mother had, had taken her through a deep journey in seeking her spiritual self and when she ‘took-in’, carried to term and had me (a bouncing baby boy) she immaculately named me Oluwarotimi, which means ‘the Lord stayed with me’. This is a compound name, so to speak, the second part being ‘Rotimi’ (I find this name so soothing), which means ‘Stay with me’. This I did till she left us to the Lord.

Olanrewaju

My name is Olanrewaju. Olanrewaju means ‘honour is continuing’ or ‘honour is moving forward’. (…) At birth and naming, it was glaring that honours continued coming to my father and the entire family  as a whole.

My father was a palm wine tapper, he became the head of the tappers (in Agbado/Agidingbi, present Ogun state, Nigeria) in the late 1930s. He left wine tapping/selling to become a stationery and book seller in Jankara market, Lagos state. This business grew from kiosk trade to shop and later departmental store in the late 50s. All this while, only female children were born, with only a male out of the eight.

In the wake of Nigeria’s independence in 1960, my father came home to the village (Iludun-Oro, Kwara State) to give his house a modern architectural facelift. Three years after independence, on August 1st, 1963, I was born, the much awaited male child had come!

Abiodun Temitope Ayotunde Omowon Idowu

Abi’s parents, living in London at the time, had one child before they were advised that, due to medical issues, another pregnancy would pose a severe risk to her mother’s life.

Eight years later, while curled up in the arms of my father in bed at night, my mother had a dream where she saw her father-in-law, dressed as a woman in high fashion and with an ample bosom and he called her name and told her that he was returning to her and that she was three months pregnant and that he would return as a girl, fair of skin and dark of eyes and though men would find her appealing, she would struggle to pick one as a mate.

My mother woke up and while she was struggling with how to tell my startled father who was wondering why she was shaky, the phone rang and my father was informed that his father had passed at midnight. My mother then told my father her dream after he had calmed down and he went and got a pregnancy test kit. It was positive.

As my parents made plans to come for the funeral, my mother convinced my dad to make the move permanent as she was terrified that she would be made to abort her baby. Father agreed and they came home finally and three months and three weeks later I was born in Lagos, premature but strong and healthy and I was immediately named Omowon (a child is rare).

I now have two other siblings. My eyes are dark and a bit fair of skin and though I have been engaged four times, I am yet to pick a mate.

[Abi hasn’t claimed her gift yet, which is why we couldn’t feature her photo on the blog post.]

Although the contest has now ended, we have not stopped receiving emails. Do you have any peculiar story about your name? Send them to us at project@yorubaname.com. We’d love to read (and possibly share) them. We are not definitely promising you a t-shirt for your efforts but you can never know…