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According to the elders, this name comes from the story of a Malinké man who, although married, did not have the chance to have children. Evil tongues were quick to call him infertile, for some, and impotent, for others. At that time, in ancient Africa, this situation was dishonorable and highly humiliating, with offspring being considered the safest, and therefore, most prized wealth. No longer able to bear being the laughing stock of the entire village, the unfortunate man left his native village to settle in his mother's. Once settled in this locality, his uncles, that is to say his mother's brothers, gave him a young woman in marriage. Miracle! He had a child with his new wife. Later, he had a second child, then a third, then a fourth. The inhabitants of his native village who were passing through this village were surprised to find that the man they treated as infertile and impotent was not really that. Finally, the truth came out and, back in their village, its visitors told the other inhabitants that 'the one we treated as helpless, is not in reality. So he is not infertile! » The member of this sentence 'he is not infertile' is translated, in Malinké, by the expression 'Konnan-TÊH', Konnan which means 'the sexually impotent or the infertile', and TÊH, which expresses the negative, negation in Malinké. In Western writing, this term 'Konnan-TÊH' became KONATÉ or KONARÉ. The bearer of the name KONATÉ is therefore a man of honor, who always takes on challenges, who does not accept defeat, humiliations and affronts.