Ubuntu? What’s in a name?

Names are difficult.

Naming anything is an act of creation. It is defining something. It is singling it out. It often reflects a collective past and a hope for the future. Parents struggle for months or years trying to find the perfect name for their future children. Be known as Ahmed, Jane, Amos or Olivier and it often leads to people assuming something about your origins, your background, your identity.
Naming a business is somewhat similar. Business names convey a message, a window on the type and style of transactions conducted under their banner. Some people get paid a lot of money to create the name of a business.
For years, my massage practice has been known as Four Hands Bodywork & Massage. It led to some confusion. The name was also not all mine. It was born out of a partnership that is no longer. So it is time for a new name.

I was looking for a name that would describe more than a business. A name that I could wear as a second skin for a long time to come. A name that could grow and shrink with time and needs.
Recently, while trying to piece together a part of my family’s history (my mother grew up in South Africa, something she only talks about rarely), I stumbled upon Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s books and was introduced to the concept of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu (pronounced /ùbúntú/ (oo-BOON-too)) is an African humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other.

It is further explained by Archbishop Tutu as:

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity.
We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

This name seems particularly fitting. What do you think?

Olivier;