Atieno

Syllable breakdown

Name meaning and origin

Origin

Luo (Kenya, Tanzania)

Meaning

a Luo feminine name given to girls born at night or in the dark hours before dawn, from the Luo root tiek/tiend meaning night or darkness; the Luo people of western Kenya and northern Tanzania have a deeply developed system of birth-circumstance names — names that record the time, conditions, and circumstances of a child's birth as a permanent public record; night-birth names like Atieno declare that this child arrived when the community was asleep, in the quiet darkness, a circumstance understood as auspicious in Luo tradition since the night belongs to the ancestors; Atieno is one of the most common and beloved feminine names in the Luo community and is widely used throughout western Kenya, particularly in Nyanza County and Kisumu; the name gained international recognition through Atieno Odhiambo, the distinguished Kenyan historian and scholar of African oral history

Gender

female

Also spelled

Atieno, Atiena