Why did modern day Ghana name themselves after the empire Ghana when it wasn't located there?

Answer 1

The modern day country of Ghana has over 100 ethnic groups, but most of them belong to two main groups of people: the Akan of the south and central areas, and the Gur peoples of the north. Among both groupories of their peoples' origins from a great kingdom situated to the north, (often called Wagadugu or Wangara; the name Wagadugu, coincidental or not, is the name that the peoples of Ancient Ghana called their kingdom, and is today the namesake of the modern capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. The name Wangara is traced to a Soninke trading clan. Again, coincidental of not, the Soninke people were the natives of the Ancient Ghana Empire). It is often referred to by modern day Ghanaians in placenames like Wa, and traditional titles of kingship such as Naa in the north of the country and Hene in the south, also shared by the ancient title of "Ga-Na" (the title of the Soninke rulers of the Ghana Empire, where the Arabs originally got the name "Ghana" from).

Historically, the area which would become modern Ghana had been a meeting place and trade spot for numerous West African peoples, with trading centers like Salaga, Bron, Bonduku (now part of Cote d'Ivoire) and Kumasi, as well as lesser known medieval kingdoms like Gyaman, Dagbon and Ghanjawiyyu, which were all affiliated with Dyula, Hausa, Fulani and Songhai tradesmen and thus became melting pots of cultures, ethnic groups and beliefs. This can today be found in the modern makeup of Ghana's people: Voltaic Gur speakers such as the Mossi-Dagomba, are also found in Burkina Faso and Mali, Akan speakers like the Nzima are also found in Cote d'Ivoire, the Ewe are spread over both Ghana and Togo, the Ga people of Accra trace a part of their ancestry to the 500BC Yoruba Ile Ifeculture (known as Ilefi to the Ga people), plus smaller yet influential groups of Hausa, Mande, Fulani and Zabarma peoples are also found in Nigeria, Benin, Guinea, Mali and Niger and were all crucial to their histories and the shared history of the region.

As Ghana is indeed part of West Africa and has been involved in the long trading history and movement of cultures and peoples crucial to the region, modern Ghanaian's claim of origins in the old Ghana Empire might not all be too far-fetched.

Western historians in the past have often taken a remote and all-too-clean view of ethnic groups and cultures in African history which had ultimately not taken into account the seamless migrations and cultural exchanges of Africans themselves over their long and shared histories, and regardless of whether a few old and dusty historians dispute its history or not, the stories of ancient Ghana have remained an integral part of cultural history to the native peoples of modern day Ghana and many other West African nations. Moesha and tyra and paradise is cute