Why are members of Ethiopia's largest community changing their names?

Several reports have shed light on a recent phenomenon among the Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, with a rising number of them giving up their official names in order to don names in their native Afaan-Oromo language.

The move is perceived as a return back to the heritage and culture of the Oromo identity by those who are adopting it, given the fact that this heritage was long subjected to forced assimilation attempts orchestrated by the Abyssinian rulers of Ethiopia, mostly comprised of the Amhara ethnic group.

According to their own narrative, the Oromo people say that they were forced to forsake their traditions and culture, including their names, by the Amharic empire that ruled over Ethiopia for almost a century.

Moti Begi, a 40-year-old Ethiopian citizen, who was previously known as Dereje Begi, told BBC that he changed his name “Dereje”, which means “augmented” in Amharic, to “Moti”, which in Afaan-Oromo means “King”.

According to a report published by BBC, more Oromo youngsters are changing their Amharic names, which were given to them when they were born to ease their fusion in the Amharic-ruled Ethiopian society, where the official language was solely represented by the Amharic language despite the massive diversity of the Horn of Africa state, a home for about 90 ethnic groups who speak between 45 to 86 languages. 

Oromia, the biggest region in Ethiopia with a population estimated at 37 million as per the latest census, has been familiar with armed insurgencies in order to curb the cultural eradication and to gain the right of self-determination, a step taken by multiple other Ethiopian ethnic groups during the course of history for the very same reasons.

In 1973, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) was founded, spearheading the Oromo people’s struggle to put an end to the Amhara dominance that was unfair sometimes to the extent of banning Oromo people from education, speaking their own language, practicing their own religions, and taking administrative roles in the government.

The arrival of current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to office in 2018 was preceded by a series of protests and public unrest organized by the Oromo people for almost two years against the previous rule of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Upon his appointment, Ahmed became the first prime minister in the history of the country to descend from the Oromo.

However, the prime minister found himself at odds with his staunch Oromo supporters after being accused of glorifying two Amhara emperors, Haile Selassie and his predecessor Menelik II, by erecting a statue in their memory in 2019.

This step infuriated the vast majority of the Oromo people, as the two emperors stand accused of inflicting several historical grievances on Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.

Shakira Adam, an Ethiopian journalist, told Jusoor Post that the Oromia region was subjected to what can be described as a long “occupation” that harshly targeted for decades the unity and the main cardinals of the Oromo society.

She added that the young generation of the Oromo ethnic group, inside and outside the country, became spontaneously keen to express their pride and deep attachment to their Oromo identity, whether by holding the national flag of Oromia at public events such as football games, or by changing their names to their native language.

“In 2019, the Oromo people celebrated for the first time since 150 years their national festival of Irreecha in the historical capital city of Oromia, Finfinne (today’s Addis Ababa), after they were banned from speaking their native language, labeling the city’s streets with names in Ayaan-Oromo language, or celebrating national festivals,” Adam said to Jusoor Post.