Baby names · Swahili origin

Bantu grammar, Indian Ocean vocabulary

Swahili is a Bantu language carrying a thousand years of Arabic borrowing from Indian Ocean trade along the East African coast. A great many names are ordinary vocabulary words used unchanged — Amani (peace), Tumaini (hope), Zuri (beautiful), Imani (faith) — so every speaker hears the meaning immediately rather than as an inherited sound. Widely taken up by African American families from the 1970s onward.

5 Swahili names in our library · 2 girl, 3 unisex