South African Slang For Boy (Helpful Content!)

In South Africa, a boy is most often referred to as “ou” or “oke”, while other slang terms such as “boykie” are often used in a more specific sense. You may also hear kerel meaning “boyfriend”. Beyond that, generic terms such as “guy,” “bro”, “dude” are very often used in large parts of South Africa.

South Africa is a nation that’s home to many languages, meaning that slang is often disjointed and only used in certain parts of the country.

There are certainly prevailing slang terms that are understood if not used by most people, but there are also many slang terms that seem obscure because they arose out of an ethnic minority.

Let’s find out more.

What do South Africans say for boy?

It’s worth mentioning right away that, of course, South Africans use a lot of the generic slang terms you’d expect to hear in the English-speaking world for boy.

1. Boy

They may, often, just say “boy”.

However, it’s also worth being aware of the fact that the word “boy” is often used as a derogatory and even racist, infantilizing term for black people.

But this is not always the case and the word also has the innocent sense of a young man.

Beyond that, though, there are a number of specifically South African slang terms you may hear used to describe young men and boys.

2. Ou

“Ou”, or its variant “oke”, are perhaps the most common and widely used.

This slang term is used to describe men and boys of any age, and is perhaps closer to a term like “bro” or “mate”.

It’s a term that men and boys most often use in addressing their friends.

3. Boykie

Another term you’ll often hear is “boykie” or sometimes “boytjie”.

This is more of a young person slang term, the kind of thing that you might hear outside of school but is used to evoke a certain kind of “coolness” that you might expect to be praised in high school.

It typically describes someone who is sporty, good looking, and uses a lot of slang.

4. Kerel

“Kerel” is not as widely used as these other terms and is more restricted to certain parts of the country and certain ethnic demographics.

It can have a few senses—it can mean “boyfriend”, although it can also mean police.

But this meaning is often expanded to mean “boys” in any case.

So, where do these terms come from?

Why do South Africans say “ou”?

“Ou” is the more common term now, but “oke” was the original term from which it was derived.

“Oke”, itself, is a clipping of the word “okie”, which in turn was a version of the word “outjie”.

This was simply an Afrikaans word meaning a young man or boy which eventually became slang in South African English and in other languages used in the nation.

The term is not much older than the 20^th Century, and “oke” is first recorded in the 1970s.

“Ou” developed not long after that, so again it cannot be much older than the last four or five decades.

Why do South Africans say “boykie”?

The story with “boykie” is very similar.

Again, originally, the more common term was “boytjie”, and this was formed through a combination of English word and Afrikaans diminutive “tjie”.

Simply add this word and boy together for the slang term.

Eventually, it came to be spelled phonetically, thus becoming “boykie”.

This one being much more specific in connotation was more likely consciously formed by people and it caught on quickly to describe certain types of boy.

Beyond that, though, we can’t say much about the origin of this term as it is not very well recorded in any way.

Why do South Africans say “kerel”?

This term has had a few different meanings over the years, depending on who was using it.

The broadest definition is that it means chaps or guys, a term you might use to describe a group of friends of any age.

Originally this was all the Afrikaans word meant.

Eventually, though, it came to be more generally understood to mean “police”.

Imagine it like referring to the police as “the boys”.

Among parts of South Africa’s ethnic minorities, as mentioned, it came to mean “boyfriend.”

Today, it can have either meaning depending on who you ask—it can be a general term for men and boys or it can more specifically mean boyfriend.

What else do South Africans call boys?

Beyond these terms, South Africans will use just about any term you might hear outside in the rest of the English speaking world for boys.

“Fellas” is not uncommon, as is “guys”, “dudes”, or sometimes even terms like “blokes”.

All of these terms can be used both to describe a group of males or your male friends, or it can be used as a way of distinguishing that you are talking about a man, such as the way “guys” is generally used.

So, plainly, there are only a handful of slang terms for boy in South Africa—but you have all the terms you need, really.

Whether you want to address your friend, your boyfriend, or specifically call someone cool or popular, you’ve got a slang term to do it with.

Beyond that, even if you don’t know the South African terms, most other generic English speaking terms will do just fine.