Following on the "naming" of people above, I was told in Zim once, that often the blacks, in this case the Ndebele, give clients a couple of names which they use among themselves.

One name they MAY tell the client, but the second name they absolutely will not.

He said they are very good at picking unnoticed traits of people and then applying them to an animal or bird, which when mentioned makes sense.

They did give my wife and I names but the PH wouldn't tell us

, so I guess it wasn't very complementary or at least he may have thought we might be offended. i would rather have known even if it wasn't that nice.

I think the worst would be if you were too boring not to be given names at all.

Not all African tribes do this but the Ndebele or Matabele do I believe.