We walked on, the stranger walking with us. Taylor Franklin Bankole. Our last names an instant bond between us. We’re both descended from men who assumed African surnames back during the 1960s. His father and my grandfather had had their names legally changed, and both had chosen Yoruba replacement names.

“Most people chose Swahili names in the ’60s”, Bankole told me. He wanted to be called Bankole. “My father had to do something different. All his life he had to be dif ferent”.

“I don’t know my grandfather’s reasons”, I said. “His last name was Broome before he changed it, and that was no loss’. But why he chose Olamina…? Even my father didn’t know. He made the change before my father was born, so my father was always Olamina, and so were we.

BUTLER, O. E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Hachette, 2019 (adaptado).

Nesse trecho do romance Parable of the Sower, os nomes “Bankole” e “Olamina” representam o(a)