At the present time, several African languages have two names, the first one being given by the european colonizer, the other one, more recently, by language professionals and researchers. The first denomination looks foreign due to the transcription process, the second is intended to be authentic. This study analyses such a situation for three West African languages and shows that the names used in the languages themselves have been ignored. In fact, the denominations of both types have been imposed by the culture of the colonizer and by that of the linguists.