Message: "N'Dea" - Behind the Name

N'Dea

by remnant

1/15/2007, 10:02 PM

Desperately trying to find out if anybody knows the meaning of this name. The only occurance I've ever found is N'Dea Davenport the singer. She is an African-American. This is all I know unfortunately.

I have tried to contact N'Dea through official and fan channels to find out if she has any idea but to no avail. We are strongly considering this name for our daughter, but knowing some origin, meaning etc would sit better with us.

If anyone has any ideas or info it'd be greatly appreciated!

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- Zina (guest)

2/23/2022, 6:43 PM

We named our daughter N’Dea. She is named after the singer but I also received a book of African names. The name appeared as Dea (male version) and is popular in the western region of Africa. By adding N’ transforms the name to the female version. The book noted that it means champion. Also one of my daughter’s doctors recognized the name as he is from Africa - cannot recall which country. He said the name is pronounced N-Daya.

- N’dea (guest)

3/1/2019, 3:44 AM

Thanks

- Cleveland Kent Evans (clevelandkentevans) +2

1/16/2007, 10:37 AM

It is probably a recent creation, either by Ms. Davenport's parents or by herself as a stage name. It's possible that it's based on India, though Nadia is another possibility. Do you know how it is pronounced? Is it nuh-DEE-uh, nuh-DAY, nuh-DAY-uh, or something else?

- remnant

1/18/2007, 3:59 AM

I believe it is probably best described this way:

en-DAY-uh with more on the n than the e in en (i can't work how better to write it...)

- anonyomous (guest)

1/17/2007, 2:36 PM

if it is nadia, i thought that i would juss tell u that it means hope in russian =) let the best come to u!

- Anneza +2

1/15/2007, 11:05 PM

It looks very like a creative spelling of India, which is used quite frequently as a given name.

- G. Crenshaw (guest) +1

9/29/2017, 2:10 PM

We named our daughter N'Dea when she was born back in 1995. The emphasis is on the first syllable, so it's pronounced N-dee-uh. From what I was told by a friend of ours from Africa, it is of East African origin, and it means "the day of". We paired it with her middle name, Ayanna, which means "the beautiful flower". She is every bit of this name. I hope all went well in your name search!

- thegriffon

3/1/2019, 5:07 AM

Since there are more languages and language families in Africa than anywhere else, I may be being too cynical, but the most common east African languages have nothing like that for "day". "Day" is siku in Swahili, usuku in Zulu and Xhosa. N'dea "sounds like" "(the) day of", so let's be generous and say they misheard. According to A comparative study of the Bantu and semi-Bantu languages by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston however, N'dea is the Taveta (the text has Taveita so the spelling is suspect, but it's a Bantu language of Kenya) word for Giraffe and so is related to Swahili Twiga, giraffe.

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