Fidel Odinga, Gloria Muliro and Paul Kobia among trending names on Google

Fidel Castro Odinga at different events. He has topped Google searches for January 2015. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Second on Google’s list is FA Cup followed by the African Cup of Nations, showing Kenyans’ high interest in matters football.

  • Notably, the death of Nigerian actor Muna Obiekwe, which is at number four on the list, shows Kenyans interest in Nigeria theatre.

  • The teachers' strike for higher pay, which saw pupils and students stay home for about two weeks, also features in the list.

  • Other issues that topped the list are Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France and Gloria Muliro, a Kenyan musician, after her broken marriage with Congolese preacher husband Eric Omba.

Fidel Odinga — the elder son of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who died in early January — has topped Google searches for the month.

Fidel also tops the most trending persons of the month, according to Google, the news of his death driving many Kenyans to search information about him.

“It is evident from Google search trends that the tragic news drove many Kenyans to search about his life and probably, circumstances leading to his death,” Google said on Friday in a statement releasing the results.

Second on Google’s list is FA Cup followed by the African Cup of Nations, showing Kenyans’ high interest in matters football.

TRENDING NAMES

Notably, the death of Nigerian actor Muna Obiekwe, which is at number four on the list, shows Kenyans' interest in Nigeria cinema.

The teachers' strike for higher pay, which saw pupils and students stay home for about two weeks, also features on the list.

Other issues that topped the list are the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France and Gloria Muliro, a Kenyan musician, after she broke up with her Congolese preacher husband Eric Omba.

Controversial Nairobi businessman Paul Kobia, Fidel's widow Lwam Bekele, his younger brother Raila Jr, US Navy Seal Chris Kyle, Saturday Nation columnist Njoki Chege and Krystian Bielik, the 17-year-old Polish football midfielder who joined Arsenal, are the other trending names.

Google search trends is a publicly available tool that displays relative search volume across geographies, time periods and queries.

Here are the sections of the list:

Top trending searches

1. Fidel Odinga

2. FA Cup

3. AFCON

4. Muna Obiekwe

5. Teachers Strike

6. Charlie Hebdo

7. Gloria Muliro

8. Paul Kobia

9. Chris Kyle

10. Lwam Bekele 

Top trending people

1. Fidel Odinga

2. Muna Obiekwe

3. Gloria Muliro

4. Paul Kobia

5. Chris Kyle

6. Lwam Bekele

7. Njoki Chege

8. Raila Junior

9. Mia Khalifa

10. Krystian Bielik 

Top trending ‘what is’ searches

1. What is networking

2. What is fob

3. What is pinterest

4. What is monarch

5. What is M-Pesa

6. What is thyroid

7. What is mutation

8. What is nutmeg

9. What is chipotle

10. What is editing.