AkanGhanaianWednesday-born
Meaning: born on a Wednesday.
Kwaku
| Origin | Akan of Ghana — the Twi day-name for Wednesday; Kweku in Fante |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Born on a Wednesday, from Wukuada, the Akan Wednesday |
| Pronunciation | KWAH-koo; the Fante Kweku is KWEH-koo and the pet form Kuuku is KOO-koo |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and uncommon in America; unremarkable in Ghana |
| Variants | Kweku, Kuuku (Fante), Kwaco, Kouakou (Baoulé), Quaco and Quacko in Caribbean records |
| Nicknames | Kuuku in Fante families; Kweks among Ghanaian-British bearers |
| Folklore | Kwaku Ananse, the spider who owns the stories, is the most famous bearer of the name |
History & meaning
Wednesday is Wukuada, and every Akan boy born on it is Kwaku — the fourth of the seven day-names that Akan families give as a matter of course, a system laid out in full on the Kwame page. Wednesday is the day with the best stories attached. Ananse, the spider of Akan folklore, is never just Ananse: he is Kwaku Ananse, a Wednesday child, and he is the archetype of the day's character. He is small, greedy, endlessly clever, and he beats larger creatures by talking. Akan tradition gives Wednesday-born people that quick, sideways intelligence, and it does not pretend the trait is entirely comfortable. Akua is the name for a girl born the same day, and Awukudae, one of the two great festivals of the Asante ritual calendar, always falls on a Wednesday.
The spider travelled. Akan people taken from the Gold Coast carried the Ananse cycle into the Caribbean, where the stories are still told as Anansi tales in Jamaica and across the anglophone islands, and into the Gullah country of the South Carolina and Georgia coast, where the spider is Aunt Nancy. The name itself went with them: Quaco and Quacko appear in eighteenth-century Jamaican and Barbadian registers alongside Cuffee and Cudjoe, day-names written down by clerks who had no idea they were recording a calendar. Two hundred years later the stories outlasted the paperwork.
Why parents choose it
Kwaku is the day-name with a character already attached to it, which is either the appeal or the objection. It is also the easiest of the seven for an English speaker to say correctly on the first attempt, and Kweku offers a softer alternative for anyone who finds the Twi vowel awkward.
Middle names for Kwaku
Two even syllables ending in a strong vowel take a longer middle comfortably: Kwaku Elias, Kwaku Solomon, Kwaku Benjamin, Kwaku Augustine. Our middle names guide has more on avoiding a vowel collision at the join.
Famous Kwakus
Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, editor-in-chief of the New Crusading Guide, is one of Ghana's most persistent investigative journalists and was jailed several times before the 1992 constitution. Kweku Mandela, a South African film producer and grandson of Nelson Mandela, was given the Akan name by his Ghanaian father. Kwaku Sintim-Misa, known throughout Ghana as KSM, has built a four-decade career in satire and broadcasting.
Consider instead
The neighbouring days are Kwasi for Sunday and Yaw for Thursday. If the appeal is the folklore rather than the calendar, the Igbo Emeka is a shortened praise name meaning great deeds have been done.