Yorubaname.com

Yoruba Name Documentation Project is an online database of Yoruba names, located at www.YorubaName.com. It was launched on February 19, 2016.^[1]

Origin

The project was first conceived in 2005 as an undergraduate thesis in the Department of Linguistics and African Language, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. At the time, the database only curated about 1000 names on a compact disk, with meaning and pronunciation. In January, 2015, over $5000 was raised via a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign^[2] to support some infrastructural elements, and the project was retooled as a crowdsourcing effort to document all the names of Yoruba people in Nigeria and all over the world.

Aims

The project is proposed as a crowdsourced database gathering information about Yoruba names everywhere (in Nigeria and elsewhere on the globe). Individuals and users will be able to submit their name on the website or use the current database to search for meanings of other specific names.

It also aims at bringing together a community of interested linguists and other culture enthusiasts to document the African cultural and linguistic experience on the web, and to facilitate the use of the Internet as a means of better representing this experience.

Project Advancement

On August 8, 2015, the team released Yorùbá Keyboard layouts for Mac and Windows to allow its users type in Yorùbá in anticipation of the dictionary itself.^[3] An update for Igbo language was launched in July 2016.^[4][5]

The project was launched online in its beta version on February 19, 2016.^[6]

On May 30, 2016, the team made the codebase of the project available online at GitHub as a way to allow other software developers have access to the tools in order to create similar projects for different languages.^[7]

In July 2016, the project was publicly presented at the University of Ibadan's Institute of African Studies to students and professors alike, to positive appraisal.^[8]

Team

The project is led and curated by writer and linguist Kola Tubosun ^[9][10][11] and supported by a small team of volunteer web developers, lexicographers, and web designers.^[12][13] Other members of the team include Dadepo Aderemi, Laila Le Guen, Koko Godswill, Esther Olatunde, among many others. Much of their work includes the main work on the dictionary itself as well as providing support and guidance for people interested in creating similar versions for other languages in the country or around the continent.

Response

The Yoruba Name project has received positive response and support during its start-up phase, ranging from interviews in prominent publications^[14][15][16] to an endorsement from renowned Nigerian film producer Tunde Kelani. The homepage of the dictionary currently features a quote by the current Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi.

References