Tshabalala means ‘to disappear’, ‘banish’, ‘decay’ and a ‘shooting star’. The surname originated in Swaziland, but also has ties to kwaZulu, Mpumalanga, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana.
The surname is rumoured to stem from the Nkosi tribe, due to internal conflict caused by the refusal of Mshengu’s (The last born child of Shaka Zulu’s father between, him and the princess of the Nksosi tribe) right to the Nkosi throne.
Mshengu was banished, but when he left some of the Nkosi tribe left with him. Mshengu’s followers where then called Tshabalala. The Tshabalala tribe later became one of the biggest tribes, that even rivalled the Zulu and Nkosi tribes.
The Tshabalala tribe was then nickednamed ‘donga lama vuso’, loosely translated as ‘from the ground a great unshakeable nation rose’.
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