This is a touchy subject, which is why I haven’t posted it before, but it’s obviously an honest question, and I have no doubt that it has an interesting answer.
I’m pretty clear on certain European-American naming traditions: the names are drawn from the Bible sometimes, from ancestors sometimes, and from moviestars and other similar sources sometimes. Asian names I’m less clear on, but I believe that there’s very often a strong use of ancestral names. And many African Americans draw on ancestral names or Biblical names or whatnot also.
But if I showed you a list of my second-graders’ first names and asked you to take a guess at their race/ethnicity, there’d be an interesting pattern. You’d probably get two of the three Latino kids no problem. You’d easily find the kid with a strong Irish tradition in the family. You’d certainly be able to pick out the African American kids.
And I’m curious, and I have been for awhile, what naming traditions exist in African American cultures that lead to names that are so distinctively African American. I’m guessing that there are several traditions: some are probably tied to Islam and the black power movement (names like Malik); some are probably tied to African languages; some are made up or appropriated from other sources (my wife tutored a child named Alize, with an accent over the e, and if this name has an origin other than the liquor, we were never able to find it).
Do folks have details on these traditions, or other traditions?
Don’t forget about names that are words with meaning. Girls especially are often named after virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Constance) or flowers (Rose, Lily, Daisy, Petunia, Violet).
Because the question could easily be construed as “Why do those people call their children such silly names?”
The OP is a reasonable question, in my opinion, but to people who are looking for something to get offended about, it’s not too difficult to pretend that the question was phrased the way I put it rather than the way it actually is.
I had something pointed out to me and I had not realized this before. I don’t know if this is followed that closely, or consistently, but a lot of times a child’s name is a variant on one of the parents’ names. Darrenisha had “Darren” for a father. Laurenisha had “Lauren” for a mother. In a similar way, DeShawn had “Shawn” for a father as did LaShawn. And the sister’s name was Shawnisha. I know a Leoj, whose father is named Joel. It seems comparable to Mc or Mac or -son or Jr.
I have wondered about the liking for what appear to be French articles - Le, La, De - added to the beginning of names. Is there any particular affinity between African-American and French culture?
The alizé is a wind (link to French Wikipedia) and I believe I’ve seen Alizée used as a female name. It’s a rare one though. A guy in my student association is named Élisé (or Élisée, I’m not sure how exactly he spells it). I think he’s African, but I couldn’t tell you from which country.
I have no idea, but I think Antwan is also a common African-American name. Is it anything but a variant spelling of Antoine?
French names for Black Americans are usually rooted in Creole tradition. As for other flat-out unusual names, I remember a newspaper article from about 20 years ago where an African-American mother explained the unusual name she gave her daughter: She wasn’t rich and she wanted the kid to have one thing that was really unique.
Sure there is, though affinity might not be the word of choice. Many African nations were former French colonies and still speak French today. New Orleans and creole/cajun cultures are a mishmash of things including black slaves and the French. Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico, the Guyanas, etc. were all French-influenced with black slaves.
As for the touchiness of the subject brought up by the OP… Once, a woman was complaining that her son would never get into college because of discrimination. They’d take one look at his name, know he was black and throw the application away (according to her). When I asked her why she didn’t just name him something like John or George, she lumped me in with all the other racists.
My (half ethnic Chinese) daughter has got a long (as in many letters) name consisting of: first (name we like) middle (my mother’s name) family (my surname, wife kept maiden name when married) Chinese (two syllables separated by space)
The first goal in the Chinese was to find a word that had the correct number of strokes (based on numeroloy / astrology), then to find a name that we both liked the sound of.
eg: her name must have 13 strokes - ok, so here is a list of names that have the correct number of strokes.
Once there is one child in the family, the second will often have one syllable the same.
For example: first born may be Siong Mun and second born then Lee Mun etc
I just assumed they used Boggle to shake 16 letters into random sequences. Whatever name they could come up with during the Boggle search was fair game, regardless of name length.
Do black folks have a tendency also to name their kids with prestigious titles like “President”, “Sir”, “Prince” and the like? Or perhaps that’s more of a socioeconomic reflection . . .
This doesn’t answer your question, but I recently learned about Anglo-American naming traditions in the book Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History) by David Hackett Fischer. It explores naming traditions from the British immigrants who populated the major regions of the US in the 1600s-1700s: Puritans (New England/Massachusetts); “cavaliers and indentured servants” (Virginia); Friends/Quakers (Pennsylvania/Delaware region); and Scottish/Irish, etc. to the “backcountry” or Appalachia. It is very interesting to read about the very distinct naming traditions within each culture, and many/most of the names that were most popular back then still seem to be very popular now.*
*Except for some creative ones from the Puritans, such as Increase, Cotton and Seaborn, plus these gems:
As mentioned before there are any number of influences, but the most important will always be what is popular among your peers- the same things that make white people suddenly start naming their kids “Madison.”
In Cameroon- an area that no doubt was involved in the slave trade- names were pretty important. My village had a complicated naming system based on birth order. But people had a number of other names- a French name, a Muslim name, a marriage name, a nickname. I never quite learned the rules of where each name comes from, but clearly names signified a lot.
Many of my students had unique names. “Bienvenue” (welcome) and “Diudonne” (God-given) were popular. So was “Djulde” (holiday) and other day-related names. Some names described characteristics, such as “Manga Manga” (big). One friend had a students named “Qui Connais” (who know) because the mother was not quite sure of the identity of the father! In Anglophone Cameroon, the names got even more interesting. It wouldn’t be too unusual to have “Precious Baby” and “Light of Jesus” in your class.
In any case, I would be surprised if West Africa and African-American naming traditions don’t share some common roots.
I’d always assumed it was a way of rejecting the “slave name” & expressing empowerment, pride, individuality & so forth. Some are rooted in Islam or African language, others kind of just created.
