indicate the level to which a name has been verified.
Type Settlement
Usage Western African, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, English
Meaning & History
From Abu-Ja, a nickname of 19th-century monarch Abubakar Jatau (sometimes referred to as "Abu"), who founded what is now the city of Abuja in 1828. By some accounts, he was described as having fair skin, which possibly earned him the nickname Ja meaning "red" in Hausa. Another theory states that the second element came from a shortened form of Abubakar's second name, Jatau, which is of uncertain meaning. This is the name of the capital city of Nigeria.