Written by Aparna Oltikar, M.D., Chairwoman of the Department of Medicine, Danbury and New Milford Hospitals, Western Connecticut Health Network
Zimbabweans have the unusual custom of naming their children after important events or emotions they experienced at the time of the child’s birth. In 2004, for example, when the swimmer Kirsty Leigh Coventry represented Zimbabwe in the Athens Olympic Games, a great many newborns were named “Backstroke,” denoting the event which won her a gold medal. A young waitress I met at the Victoria Falls Hotel explained that her name was “Happiness” because this is what her parents had felt when, after many years of trying to have children, she was born. Things were decidedly different when her youngest brother – the last of seven children – was born unexpectedly many years later. His name was Hardship.
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