Replies

My children all have classic or biblical names and when we come through the door for appointments people do not expect them to be black

Same here. I have one son named Peter. When people ask me the name of my son, they are surprised it's a "normal" name.

The "black name" thing is only prevalent to blacks in the USA. If you go abroad or know immigrant blacks, you'll notice that a majority of their children have traditional, Christian names.

As far as the weird names many American blacks name their children, my belief is that this phenomenon is a by-product of the race-hustlers and their hatred of whites. Their thinking is that since Sarah, John, Paul, and Alan sound "white", then it's a sign of rebellion against "white society" to make up some pseudo-African name.

Another thought: did American black children have weird names in the 1800's? At the turn of the 20th century? Heck, even the 50's and 60's? If not, where and when did the naming of black children with these weird names get their start?

If not, where and when did the naming of black children with these weird names get their start?

I had just typed that same question a few minutes ago and then didn't post it. All the black people I know are at least 30 years old and all have "normal" names.

Well, there is one very unusual name in black history that I'm surprised isn't used...Sojourner (I hope I'm spelling that correctly).

It is unusual, and it certainly has a ringing historical legacy to carry with it. I don't know any children named that, and it seems so much better than the aforementioned "LaTissue" and the like.

Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Dennis Rodman, Bill Russell, Warren Moon, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Benjamin Banneker, Barbara Jordan, George Washington Carver, Andrew Young, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Bobby Seale, John Conyers, Charles Rangel, Clarence Thomas, Frederick Douglas, Ralph Ellison, Alex Haley, James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, George Foreman, Samuel Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, James Brown, Ray Charles, Michael "Baby Drop" Jackson, Charlie Parker, Will Smith, Stevie Wonder, Don King, Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, Hank Aaron, Joe Morgan, and of course the first black President "Bill" Clinton.

"Another thought: did American black children have weird names in the 1800's?"

Most names in the mid 1800s were classical Greek named like Marcellus, Lucius, Julius, Horace, or Hercules.

I have some ancestors named after famous people; many were also named after local preachers or civic leaders or even the doctors who delivered the babies.

John and Mary always prevailed, but the prevalence of OLD Testement names like Ebenezer, Sarah, and so on...as a rebellion against Catholic/Church of England names like Michael, Matthew, and Luke.

However, by the late 1800s, that era of Classical/American hero namecalling ended.

As a genealogist, I haven't found a LOT of difference between black & white names in the 1800s or early 1900s. Some of the slave names tended toward classical Greek or Roman names, more so than those of the whites - Cicero and Cato were fairly common, for instance, as slave names.

I'd guess the odd black names started with Afrocentrism, right after the civil rights movement.

Can't answer your questions, but my mum is a Brit and the times we went back most of the black men there were named Nigel, Virgil, Arthur--none spoke ghetto lingo, but proper English and were indistinguishable from any other brit. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be the same kind of racial tension as the states at least between black and white brits.