South African family history, genealogy, heritage and interesting places, past and present. All articles researched and written by Anne Lehmkuhl. COPYRIGHT ANNE LEHMKUHL, no article can be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission. EMAIL ME
Name changes
The government is looking at forcing private property owners to change offensive names, according to Vusithemba Ndimo, chief director of language in the Department of Arts and Culture. He said this would enable the state to force the likes of farm owners and shop keepers to change names that were found to be offensive. Ndimo was addressing the committee on the progress made of reducing the backlog of more than 57 000 names nationally that needed to be changed. Most of the names of big towns and rivers have already been changed. The backlog concerns mainly names of monuments, streams and fields. According to the list drawn up by the Provincial Geographical Names Committees, the Free State had 1 920 names to change, KwaZulu-Natal 7 833, Northern Cape 9137, North West 2 386, the Eastern Cape 16 301, Gauteng 431, Mpumalanga 2 438, Limpopo 5 229 and the Western Cape 11 086.