Tabu as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Tabu

What is the meaning of the name Tabu ?

The baby name Tabu is a boy name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced TAH-boo.

Tabu is Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic in Origin.

Tabu is best explained as an Oceanic word-name, not a single inherited personal name. Its oldest recoverable form is Proto-Oceanic *tabu, set apart, sacred, under prohibition; in Proto-Polynesian this appears as *tapu, with the regular Polynesian p corresponding to earlier Oceanic b in related languages. The literal sense joins two ideas often separated in English: holiness or ritual potency, and restriction from ordinary handling or use.

European accounts of Tonga and other Pacific societies carried tapu into English as taboo in the late eighteenth century, after Captain Cook’s voyages. As a forename, Tabu is rare and more often documented in modern African contexts than in Polynesian registers; the Congolese musician Tabu Ley Rochereau is the best-known bearer. Swahili tabu, usually trouble or hardship, belongs to a different etymological stream, so African use need not preserve the Oceanic sense. Variants include Tapu and the French-influenced Tabou.