Mauri: An Etymological and Memetic Conversation

The name Mauri means different things to different people. As I have used it, Mauri is a variation on the theme Maurice, which is the baptismal name my father gave me. I don't know if, and I don't think that, he knew the etymology of the word. All he knew, and needed to know, was that it was a saint's name -- as it turns out, one out of over 5000 saints (and blessed or venerable individuals still one or two steps to sainthood) -- and that he wanted to give it to his eldest. Perhaps he (still a young man at 30) had the help, in this, of an Irish Catholic priest (in our cultural circles Catholic priests were called Opere) at St. Peter Claver's, in Nairobi, those many years, those many innocent and devout years, ago. I did not, of course, have a say in the conversation -- of which I was the Februarist subject. Being around, I was happy enough just to be around, and to be so obviously doted upon as I believe I was. You see, I, Onyalo, was father to the man -- who sought to name me, one more time, with the Church's blessing.

I officially changed that first name Maurice to Mauri a quarter century later. Essentially, however, what I changed was the spelling, and the pronunciation -- effectively bringing to an end the ce (to the ear the s) -- thereby allowing the name to be a three-syllable name, to those (the majority, it turns out) who preferred to pronounce it so (Mauritania and Mauritius being familiar to them), and a two-syllable to others. What's interesting is that both Mauritania and Mauritius derive from Mauri, not the other way round! The island of Mauritius was, ironically, named after the Dutch Prince Maurice of Nassau by Dutch explorers, so that what goes around comes around.

There are still people now, though, people whom I have known for a long, long time, whom I suffer -- a muffled sort of suffering -- to call me Morris, or even Moris! Occasionally, Prof. Maurice Yambo even appears on the cover page of a student's term paper! I prefer to treat these as typos -- and you know how the editorial mind presumes to treat suchlike.

The name Maurice has a long and detailed history, as I have come belatedly to learn. One online source explains that Maurice originates from an old Roman name Mauricius, itself rooted in the word Maurus, which is a Latin word meaning "Dark Skinned". In Greek, Maúros likewise means black. Maurus and Maúros are thus the Latin and Greek etymons of Maurice. But it all boils down to Mauri = Moor, which I didn't know so many years ago.

We read that Maurus (or its derivatives Maurice, Mauritius, Maurinus, Maurontus and Maura) was the name of some 22 early saints (click here for another source), including followers of Saint Benedict. Maurice is also the name of an Egyptian soldier/martyr who served in the Roman army, and of other noteworthy characters from the past:

Saint Maurice was a 3rd-century Roman soldier from Egypt. He and the other Christians in his legion were supposedly massacred on the orders of emperor Maximian for refusing to worship Roman gods. Thus, he is the patron saint of infantry soldiers.

This name was borne by a 6th-century Byzatine emperor. Another notable bearer was Maurice of Nassau (called Maurits in Dutch), a 17th-century prince of Orange who helped establish the Dutch Republic. The name has been used in England since the Norman conquest, usually in the spelling Morris or Moris. (click here
for source)

The name Mauri is, in the end, the equivalent of Maurus and root (even "root-cause") of the name Maurice. To the English of old, and to Imperial England, all inhabilants of North Africa, and of parts of the Sahel, were, following that same tradition, broadly labelled Moors. Thus, Hannibal (who, like I, was born in '47) was a Moor; and so was Shakespeare's fictional character Othello. So were Ibn Khaldun (fellow Sociologist) and St. Augustine of Hippo. Among the Scots, however, Mauri is, quaintly, a derivative of Mary; which is a name that's given to girls and not boys.

A Google search and other encounters reveal that Mauri has multiple and usually related or cross-cutting meanings, including the following:

1. It means Moor, itself an anglicized etymon, as above explained. In that sense, and by extension, it is also a frequent referent to all things Maori -- that is, to the Maori people of New Zealand.

2. It has attached to it a series of more recent or more sub-cultural usages or renditions in a variety of social contexts (for one such series, Click).

3. It means "the life force which all objects contain" in Maori language (spoken in New Zealand) and in the Rotuman language (spoken on the Rotuman Island, a part of Fiji) (click). Since all objects contain "a life force", Mauri is at one with all things, and Mauri is Everyman.

4. It is, to a section of the fashion-conscious, a designer-shoe brand that one occasionally comes across in the glossy media.

5. Casa Mauri (or Palau-Mauri), associated with a family of confectioners (Yambo loves sweet things), is one of the five palaces that house Museu Picasso (The Picasso Museum) on the Carrer de Montcada Street in Barcelona, Spain.

All told, Mauri is as glorious a name as I always thought it was; a clear case of wysiwyg!