Do you have an Igala Name?
Do you know the meaning of your Igala Name?
Does it mean anything to you to know the meaning of your Igala Name?
Well, Igala Names are largely proverbial and content great depth of philosophical wealth which has sociological consequencies.
Well that is for the professionals in the fields of Sociology and Anthropology.
For you and I, what is significant or better still, what should concern us now is the fact that the true meaning of most
of our names is fast getting extinct.
We have therefore embarked upon a name Collating Process for every day people and especially for Igalas in diaspora whose
child do not know what the name Atuluku, Opaluwa, Achimugu etc mean.
I assure you, those names have their meanings, just that modern man might not know them because Igala tradition have
largely been documented by oral tradition and not so much in the literary sense.
For instance, Atuluku is a name given (often) to a first male child. It means At'ulu akwun. 'Ulu' is seed.
At'ulu is any thing that produces seed. So Igala say, Anything that produces seed does not die. Meaning that because
a man has given birth to a male child (which in Igala philosophy is the true seed or family child, for a girl in our culture
is believed to be only in the family for a while), he no longer dies, since he has one who will continue his linage.
The same with Opaluwa - Opu being short for for 'Olopu'. Like you hear of Opata in Idah - meaning 'Olopu ama ata'. Again
'elu' talks about 'germinating' or 'blosoming'. So when many male children are being born into a family(sometimes meaning
a clan) at a time, the Igala man says, the 'Family is Blossoming the more' - Olopu alu wa - literally the family
is germinating more still.
And so are all the names you hear. Om'obie, Iganya, Adigo, Ejura, Ajeka, Akagwu, They all have meaning. Beautiful
meaning.
