Saiks, My name is really Hamjatta. It has it's roots in Arabic; it stems from the Hamza who was an uncle of the Prophet (pbuh). This is not stereotyping but the Mandingo indigenous by that I mean those born and raised in a family where the lingo and culture is Mandingo, do have a problem with pronouncing ZA all they can manage is JA. Hence Hamja instead of Hamza and after decades of bastardisation of the phonetic, it eventually became Hamjatta. Saiks when I was younger, it was the butt of jokes in Banjul and I remember begging my dad to change it to anything normal. He would use this as a leverage and form of blackmail to make do things I would otherwise loathe to do promising to change it to anything "normal" if he wants something get done. I am made to understand there are other Hamjattas and they say loads of 'em in the provinces; I have yet to meet any one of them. I only accepted it because a girl fell in love with me because she loves my name!!!!! Isn't that amazing? I really love it now after all those years of shameful and cowardly "name crisis". It's Aloha from me Hamjatta. Hope you find the info useful. Hamjatta hkanteh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------