AkanGhanaianThursday-born
Meaning: born on a Thursday, the earth's day.
Yaw
| Origin | Akan of Ghana — the day-name for Thursday, and the shortest of the seven |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Born on a Thursday, from Yawoada, the Akan Thursday |
| Pronunciation | YOW, one syllable, rhyming with how — not YAH-oo and not the nautical yaw |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and effectively unused there; common throughout Ghana |
| Variants | Yao (Ewe and Baoulé, used in Togo, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire), Yawo, Quaw in old Caribbean records |
| Nicknames | None — at one syllable there is nowhere to go, though Ghanaians often add the day appellation Preko |
| Female form | Yaa, borne by Yaa Asantewaa, who led the Asante against the British in 1900 |
History & meaning
Yaw breaks the pattern. Six of the seven Akan day-names — the automatic birth-day names given to every Akan child, set out in full on our Kwame page — begin with the male prefix kw-: Kwasi, Kwadwo, Kwabena, Kwaku, Kwame. Thursday's does not. Yawoada gives plain Yaw, one syllable, and the female form is the equally bare Yaa. It makes Yaw the shortest name in a tradition that otherwise runs to two and three syllables, and among Ewe and Baoulé speakers to the west it is written Yao.
Thursday's weight comes from Asase Yaa, the earth. She is the Akan earth deity, second only to Nyame the sky god, and her own name is the Thursday day-name — she is a Thursday-born woman. Because Thursday is her day, Asante farmers traditionally do not break the ground on it; the earth is resting, and to till it would be a trespass. Fante communities keep the same rule on Friday and call her Asase Efua instead, which tells you the observance is older and more local than any single spelling. Thursday-born people are described as bold and forthright, and the traditional appellation for the day, Preko, still turns up as a Ghanaian surname. In the Americas the name was recorded as Quaw, one of the many Akan day-names that surface in eighteenth-century plantation registers alongside Cuffee and Cudjoe.
Why parents choose it
It is three letters and one sound, which in a family with Ghanaian roots and an English-speaking address is a considerable practical advantage. Nothing about Yaw needs explaining twice, and it sits with equal ease before a short surname or a long one.
Middle names for Yaw
A one-syllable first name can carry almost anything, and the longer the better: Yaw Emmanuel, Yaw Alexander, Yaw Frederick, Yaw Sebastian. The middle names guide covers what happens when both names are short.
Famous Yaws
Yaw Yeboah, a winger who came up through Ghana's youth teams, has played in Poland, Spain and the United States and been capped by the Black Stars. Yaw Preko was part of the Ghana side that won the 1991 Under-17 World Cup and went on to coach in the domestic league. Yaw Osei Adutwum, an educationist trained in the United States, served as Ghana's minister for education.
Consider instead
Other days, same system: Kofi for Friday, Kwame for Saturday. For a Thursday name from a different African tradition, the Swahili Hamisi marks the same day by way of Arabic counting.