What’s up with black people’s names? (Generally) whites have names of European or other origins. Other minorities may have names respective to their origin (Latin America, Asia, whatever). I find it odd that African Americans have names like Antwan, Donnell, Lakisha, Moesha, whatever. I could only find a few names in baby name databases, and their origins are African American. They even have meanings. Who made up these names, and where did the meanings come from? There obviously is no Afro-American language, and I strongly doubt it has any influence from Africa. Do they just randomly make them up? Af-Am names seem to get more and more bizzare, sometimes just adding an -a to the end (Mawrisha, Laquesha). I’m not even getting into the identifiable, yet unusual names (Peerless, Garrison, to name a few football players), which seem to pop up more among Afro-Americans than white Americans.
Do black Europeans have similar, unusual names? Do non-traditional names pop up more among them than whites, like in the U.S.?
I think the reason you don’t see “odd” european names, is because all of your friends have them.
I think names are only bizarre in a cultural sense; for example: I find American names normal, I’ve grown up with them. Now the Japanese people, they have odd names! However, I’m quite sure they think the same about my name…See where I’m going with this?
I seem to remember sometime during the 80s it became popular (some would say trendy) for black parents to give their kids African (or at least African-sounding) names.
There is no Afro-American language, same as there is no European-American language. But there are many languages that come from Africa, and many names to choose from those languages.
They may be uncommon to you because you didn’t grow up listening to those names.
It isn’t only a black thing, it’s a Southern Baptist thing. Your remarks singling out African Americans for ridicule could be seen as having a racist tinge. Lots of white Southern Baptists have funny names too. How about Elvis? Where did that come from? It isn’t from Europe; it’s just a couple of made-up syllables.
The explanation for this is the Baptist rejection of the doctrine of infant baptism. Kids aren’t baptised until they’re several years old. In the meantime, they need names.
A pastor or priest officiating at infant baptism would make sure the child gets a proper Christian name. This is why “christening” means at once “baptism” and “naming.” I was raised Catholic; we were brought up to think that the only proper name for a child was a saint’s name. The priests at baptism made sure of that. Even if a Catholic baby was given a non-saint first name, the priest would always insert a saint’s name as the middle name.
But with the Baptist kids waiting around for years for baptism, their parents felt free to give them any made-up whimsical name that struck their fancy. This has historically been true of both white and black Southern Baptists. Another factor influencing nontraditional given names is the socioeconomic status of a family. The old, aristocratic families (usually Presbyterian or Episcopalian in the South anyway) would tend to recycle names that traditionally run in the family. But po folks are less likely to have illustrious ancestors to commemorate, so they would feel freer to make up inventive names.
Of course, there is no Af.-Am. language, but Af.-Am. parents just want to give their kids bizarre, African-sounding names because they want to feel like they’re connected to what (I suppose) some (though, realistically, very few) still believe to be their homeland.
Correction: not very few, but more like a rising trend. This is not exclusive to blacks, however. Many people are trying to reconnect to their “homeland,” something I find annoying. I wasn’t born in the U.S., but I think that people should only support the country in which they are documented citizens, and no other. (I’m not a nationalist; I believe that nationalism is stupid. Nevertheless, people should serve their country simply because it benefits them [by ensuring the continuation of the conditions they currently enjoy].)
Well, Antwan is a phonetic variant of Antione (there probably should be an accent on that e), and maybe Donnel is a variant of Donald? It’s possible a lot of these names are alternate spellings of English and French names.
That is roughly correct. I cannot say for certain that Roots is what caused it but African sounding names certainly became common after the mini-series was released. It may have more to do with the maturation of the civil rights movement in general. I grew up in a very small town in Northwestern Louisiana that was one of the last towns in the South to desegregate its schools (it happened in 1980). My parents taught at the black K-12 school from 1970 - 1983. If you look at the yearbooks from those years, you can see an extremely rapid transition from blacks having English sounding names to having pseudo-African sounding names.
These names have very little basis in actual African ancestry. Almost all blacks brought into the American South had all of their African identity stripped including their place of origin and the names of their ancestors. They all, of course, inherited the last name of one of their ancestor’s owners. The first names of their ancestors would not have been known either. It simply became trendy to give black children African sounding names. This fad has fed on itself so that a type of naming scheme has become established for black children in America. It is really a cultural phenomenon all its own at this point and only distantly related to African ancestry.
If your name ends in la, fa, or sha, you may be ghetto. According to the book “You may be ghetto if…” by Keenan Ivory Wayans. Sort of a takeoff of “You may be a redneck if…” I find it more of a problem with female names. I loved it on Saturday Night Live, when Destiny’s child played Nokia, Shellaqua, and I can’t remember the third. All former members of Gemini’s Twin.
Future moms, try to keep your kids names down to two syllables.
This is so true. I was born into a poor white Southern Baptist family and they named me Robert of all things. Daddy must have really been into the Pabst Blue Ribbon that night.
I always assumed they have goofy looking names because their surnames are so common, completely lacking in any real heritage other than sounding like presidents or colors. Anyone can be Lisa Brown but how many people can be LaChandolierQua Brown?
I remember the black couple who got kicked off Temptation Island had outlandishly bizarre names that Jon Stewart of the Daily Show said “they obviously picked their name out of a bag of scrabble tiles.”
Still it’s no goofier than hippy names like Sky or Free but at least white America could figure out what those names meant or represented without feeling socially distanced.
My question which is wholly meant to take this thread off topic are how many black Dopers are actually proud of having bizarre African-esque names or just hide them by using something simpler either because the name is so outrageous or the rest of the world has had so much trouble trying to spell slash pronounce the names that they gave up because the name was more trouble than it is worth?
One day, someone will explain to me why white people are so worried about what our names are. Does it really do something terrible to you if my child is named Lakeshia or Darnell or something similarly “outrageous” and “more trouble that it is worth?” Is it such a terrible thing that we’re not adding to the glut of Madisons, Emilys and Dylans floating around the world? Is Taqueela really any more stupid or made up than he umpteen spellings of Michaela/Mikala/Makayla/Mikayla or Jaden? Or the startling number of children who will be entering kindergarten in the next couple of years with names like Felicity, Dawson, Willow or Pacey?
Every time this topic comes up, my blood boils a little hotter. The combination of the finger-pointing “haha, ain’t them darkies funny giving their kids these weird names” with the underlying “why can’t you just assimilate and get along and be just like us” attitude that goes hand in hand with it is insulting at the very least.
We do not have to be like you. We do not have to dress like you, talk like you, wear our hair like you, eat like you or have names like you. Deal with it.
Au contraire, there are some distinctly beautiful African-origin names. Two that come to mind are Shauku, meaning Darkness, and Morathi, meaning mystery. Both are from Central African languages I think. Definitely gonna name my baby girl Morathi.