AFRICAN-AMERICAN NAMES: Early Day, Place, and Word Names

Here is another excerpt from our latest book, Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby

In Colonial times, as many as twenty percent of the slaves in the Carolinas bore African names, most notably day names, which relate to the day of the week on which the person was born. The West African day names, often translated to English cognates such as Judy for Juba or Joe for Cudjoe, are:

SUNDAY – QUASHEBA (female); QUASHEE (male)
MONDAY — JUBA; CUDJOE
TUESDAY –BENEBA; CUBBENAH
WEDNESDAY — CUBA; QUACO
THURSDAY – ABBA; QUAO
FRIDAY — PHEBE/PHIBBI; CUFF/CUFFEE
SATURDAY — MIMBA; QUAME/KWAME

Names were also chosen that signified months of the year, seasons and holidays. Some of these that have survived on the roles include: MONDAY, FRIDAY, CHRISTMAS, EASTER, MARCH and JULY.

Place names, sometimes signifying a site of importance to the slave owner, sometimes relating to one  meaningful to the African-American parents,  were also commonly used– as many as a quarter of male slaves received a place-name in the mid-1700s. Among those found:

ABERDEEN
AFRICA
ALBEMARLE
AMERICA
BALTIMORE
BARBARY
BOSTON
CAROLINA
CONGO
DUBLIN
GLASGOW
LONDON
NORFOLK
RICHMOND
WILLIAMSBURG
WINDSOR
YORK

Most avant-garde sounding to our modern ears are the word names used for and by African-Americans, signifying everything from the weather to virtues  à la the Puritan naming traditions. Their use  relates to the African belief in the power of a name to shape personality or influence fate or impart a certain quality – though many are far from uplifting. Some virtue and word names recorded among early African-Americans are:

Female

CHARITY
DIAMOND
EARTH/EARTHA
HONOR
HOPE
JEWEL
LOVE
MOURNING
OBEDIENCE
PATIENCE
PROVIDENCE
QUEEN
TEMPERANCE

Male
CALIFORNIA GOLD
DUKE
FORLORN
GOODLUCK
HARDTIMES
JUSTICE
KING
LOWLIFE
MAJOR
MISERY
PLENTY
PRINCE
SQUIRE
SUFFER
VICE

Both
CHANCE
FORTUNE
FREEZE
LIBERTY
PLEASANT
RAINY
STARRY
STORMY

For more on African-American naming history, see our new book Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby from which this post was adapted.

Tags: African-American baby names, African-American day names, African-American history, african-american name history, day names, early african-american names, place names, word names

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 11:41 pm and is filed under "Beyond Ava & Aiden", African-American baby names, day names, name history, unique baby names, unusual baby names, word names . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.