700 clan names across 12 languages, each on its own page, with what the sources record for it and where each of it was read from.
Showing every name.
No name matches that.
Spelling varies a great deal between sources, so try a shorter fragment. Three or four letters is usually enough. Clearing the language and system filters widens the search.
If your family's name is not recorded here at all, that is worth knowing: tell us and it can be added with its source.
The coverage is uneven and the table says so. A language is here because sourced material exists for it, and the numbers are counted from the pages themselves rather than stated. A thin section is a thin section, not a rounded-up one.
| Language | System | Clans | With a praise shown | Praise held |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| isiZulu | izithakazelo | 189 | 189 | — |
| isiXhosa | iziduko | 155 | 146 | — |
| siSwati | tinanatelo | 76 | — | 31 |
| isiNdebele (Northern Ndebele) | izithakazelo | 64 | — | 28 |
| Tshivenda | mitupo | 40 | — | 8 |
| Xitsonga | swivongo | 37 | 10 | 11 |
| Sesotho | diboko | 32 | — | 32 |
| Sesotho sa Leboa | diboko | 31 | — | 14 |
| isiNdebele (Southern Ndebele) | izithakazelo | 28 | — | 21 |
| Setswana | diboko | 22 | — | 4 |
| iKalanga | clan names | 17 | — | — |
| chiShona | mitupo | 9 | 9 | — |
A clan's izithakazelo are the praise names by which it is addressed and its ancestors greeted. The recitation line is the unit of the form: a sequence run together into prose loses structure that carries meaning, so every praise on this site is set line by line as it is recited.
An isiduko is the clan name itself, the name a Xhosa person answers to before their surname. The praises recited to invoke it are its izinqulo, from ukunqula, to invoke or call upon the ancestors by the clan's names. The surname beneath both is the isibongo.
A Sotho-Tswana clan is named by its seboko. A seboko is a totem, usually an animal, held by the clan. The praise poems have their own names and their own verbs by people: lithoko and ho boka in Sesotho, maboko and go bina in Setswana, direto and go reta in Sesotho sa Leboa. A shared totem is not a shared clan, and nothing here merges one into another.
A Shona clan is named by its mutupo and subdivided by chidawo, its praise name. The mutupo is the totem animal or organ held sacred. Tshivenda uses the same word for a different system: a Venda mutupo names both the totem and the group holding it, and the praise poem is a tshirendo.
A Tsonga clan is its xivongo, the clan name and surname at once, praised in a xiphato xa xivongo. The honorific address-name is a xithopo. Ten of these praises are shown here; the rest are held.
Nguni systems, and still not one system. Swati praises are tinanatelo, and the corpus is organised by Bemdzabuko, Emakhandzambili and Emafikamuva. The Southern amaNdebele of Mpumalanga and the Matabeleland amaNdebele are two peoples with one name: they are kept apart here, and the names that occur in both are qualified rather than collapsed into one record.
isiXhosa terms recorded from: WIKIPEDIA (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_clan_names); IZITHAKAZELO; corroborated by NIVILE
Every clan name here was written down by someone and is set out the way they wrote it. Where two people wrote it differently, both are here.
Some clans have a praise that is not on the site yet. Their pages say so, and a family that still recites theirs can put the true one up.
These isiXhosa clan names are in the corpus with no izinqulo recorded, so they have no page yet: Mbatha, Ganu, Gqunu, Hegebe, Shiya, Sohobese, Khawuta, Khonjwayo, Skhoji.