Tswana Clan Names & Praises
In Tswana tradition, your clan name — your sereto — is the ancestral identity that places you within the living community of the Batswana nation and connects you to every generation of your people who carried that name before you. The Batswana are one of southern Africa’s most widely spread and historically significant peoples, whose great merafe — chiefdoms — stretched across the vast semi-arid plains of the North West, Northern Cape, and into what is today Botswana. Each clan is known by its totem animal — the seboko — which is honoured, respected, and never harmed by the members of that clan as a living mark of ancestral identity. The maboko are the praise poems recited to honour lineage and ancestry at the great ceremonies of Tswana life. Explore the Tswana clan names below, discover the praises of your lineage, and find your place in the enduring story of the Batswana nation.
Royal & founding merafe of the Batswana
What is a sereto?
A sereto is your Tswana clan name — a hereditary identity passed through the paternal line that places you within one of the great merafe of the Batswana nation. Each sereto connects you to the totem animal of your clan, the seboko, which is respected and never harmed as a living symbol of your ancestral identity across all Tswana-speaking communities.
Seboko — the clan totem
Every Tswana clan is identified by its seboko — a totem animal that embodies the spirit and character of the lineage. The Bakwena carry the crocodile, the Bafokeng the dew, and the Barolong the buffalo. The seboko is honoured at ceremony, respected in daily life, and invoked in the maboko praise poems that are recited at the great gatherings of Tswana community life across South Africa and Botswana.
Tswana clan history
The Batswana built some of the largest pre-colonial towns in southern Africa — sophisticated, densely populated settlements whose governance, trade networks, and cultural traditions rivalled any on the continent. Their merafe stretched across the highveld and Kalahari fringe, sustaining communities of remarkable resilience and political sophistication across centuries of southern African history.
Read Tswana history →