I’ve noticed a disproportionate number of black people, especially rappers, who take on names ending in -won or -kwon - Raekwon, Pacewon, and J-Kwon being the first three that spring to mind.
Why? What does this mean or signify? Is this one of those “back to africa, where we were all kings” things?
AFAIK, it’s just a convention that someone started and it stuck. The first time I’d heard it is actually Melquan who I know only from a duet with Chuck D. Mid-90s timing on that. Unsure of the contemporality of Raekwon, who is significantly more famous.
For -won, I don’t know if KRS-One counts.
A lot of them are probably their real names. Big Boi’s real name is Antwon.
In the case of Raekwon, he probably got it from a Kung-Fu movie.
Meaning, their real names or variations of them. I’ve never heard of J-Kwon but his real name could be Jakwon or something similar.
Also, a lot of people with multi-syllable names drop a syllable at the beginning or end, thus Antwon becomes Twon, etc.
For reference:
Raekwon’s real name is Corey Woods. J-Kwon is Jerrelle Jones. Melquan is Melvin Keys. Pacewon’s real name is a mystery, no online references about him have a real name attached. I think that might blow the “derivation of their real names” idea out of the water and lends credence to the “it’s a convention that stuck because it sounds good” theory.
Perhaps related somehow to Kwanza?
Kwan as in Kwanza is Swahili according to some articles I’ve been reading. It means “great one” or “first one” and when attached to a prefix serves as an adjective to describe the person using it either as above the rest or possibly as we might use senior. Implying that there might be a junior in the family or a III generation of the same name. That’d be cool…I could be t-keelakwan with my son as t-k jr.
On a different note, according to this link kwan as in martial arts and/or the asian use of kwan or kwon. (ie: taekwon or Michelle Kwan) is African in origin and Buddha was perhaps black. :dubious: