Asantewaa is an African name from Akan tradition, famously borne by Yaa Asantewaa, a historic Ghanaian queen mother.
Asantewaa is a name of towering historical and cultural significance rooted in the Akan tradition of the Asante people of present-day Ghana. In Twi, the Akan language, the name carries feminine markers that tie it to the Asante royal and warrior tradition. The name is inseparable from Yaa Asantewaa (c.
1840–1921), the Queen Mother of Ejisu, who in 1900 led the War of the Golden Stool — one of the last and most defiant uprisings against British colonial rule in West Africa. When Asante male chiefs hesitated in the face of British demands to surrender their sacred Golden Stool, the symbol of Asante sovereignty and soul, Yaa Asantewaa reportedly declared: "If you the men of Asante will not go forward, then we will. I shall call upon my fellow women."
She organized and commanded an army of thousands. Though the British ultimately suppressed the uprising and exiled her to the Seychelles, where she died in 1921, Yaa Asantewaa became a foundational figure of African resistance, women's leadership, and anti-colonial pride. She is celebrated in Ghanaian national memory, in museums, in schools, and in diaspora communities around the world. To name a child Asantewaa is to invoke this extraordinary legacy — a declaration that the bearer carries the spirit of a woman who faced an empire and did not flinch.