Day 9: What's in a name?

Today, I spent another day work shadowing in the Reproductive Health Centre. I don’t want to scare you off with more stories of smear tests and injections so instead I’ll tell you the story of how I came to be called Nicole Ocansey.

So the Ocansey bit dates back a long long time ago to the people of Ada (pronounced Ah-daar) where my dad’s family are originally from.

DISCLAIMER

This is the story as it was told to me by my family when I was little. It may not be fact but I doubt it's a complete work of fiction. Nonetheless, it's a good story and totally plausible...

It’s believed that when the Portuguese (or it could have been the British; this bit I always forget) came to Ghana, the people of Ada were the first to meet them. Everytime the explorers tried to communicate with the chief of the Ada people, he would turn to one of his people and say “oh kan ni sayn?” (using creative license again!) which translates from Twi to English as “how do you say that?”- basically trying to understand what the foreigners were saying . Of course, with the language barrier, there was a lot of “oh kan ni sayn” –ing and eventually after repeating it many, many times, the explorers began to address the people of Ada as the O-ka-ni-sayn people which eventually lead to the Ocansey people.

True story.

I think.

As for the name Nicole, well that’s something to do with a popular Renault car advert from 1993. Thanks Dad.

Spot the odd one out:
One Ocansey, three Ashleys.