If the name is spelled Rodrigues, the name is Portuguese but has the same meaning) 3. After emancipation, they all used the Terry surname because their families had been with the white Terry family for generations. They called me OCK. Also included here are common names among slaves, many of which were classical and had ties to the Bible or mythology, such as Keziah and Venus. The most common origin for surnames is that enslaved people initially used the surname of either their mother or their father, if they knew what those names were. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. See flier here. The Missouri Compromisealso referred to as the Compromise of 1820was an agreement between the pro- and anti-slavery factions regulating slavery in the western territories. I did not even check the 1850 slave schedule. Thats high on my to do list. This reading contains quoted text not authored by Facing History & Ourselves. But the meanings of names certainly evolved over time, and some have argued that the principles according to which an individual name was given (e.g., after a relative or ancestor) are at least as important as its apparent meaning and type. Enslaved people suffered constant sale, where children were frequently torn away from parents at young ages and spouses were often separated. I am a farmer. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. 44. EDHASA, 2006, 359 pages, (. Benson, Susan. It means 'raven'. There are many factors to consider in determining what surnames African Americans used. As enslavement continued through the 1800s, African American culture included naming practices that were national in scope by the time of emancipation, and intimately related to the slave trade. By examining periods of violence during the Reconstruction era, students learn about the potential backlash to political and social change. 1. Numerous historical sources confirm that enslaved people had surnames that they used among themselves and in many cases were known by their slaveholder. by John C. Inscoe, 2006; Revised May 2022 by NC Government & Heritage Library. In his pension file, my great great grandmother his widow expressed that he chose his former enslaver surname because his father had been enslaved by them, too. Places; Login. Nonetheless, this is a situation where two brothers selected different surnames. Rank. African Americans were known by these surnames in the slave community and often recorded by slave owners on plantation documents. Over time, East Tennessee, hilly and dominated by small farms, retained the fewest number of slaves. Well, Ive gone off on a tangent again;) But thank you again for writing and thank you for the cemetery work (especially trying to include African-Americans you are doing that will be of benefit to others. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on In the. Others who wanted no connection to their former owners used surnames like Freeman or Freedman. ", "Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts. Evidence indicates that many enslaved parents named their children after the first generation or so of family members brought to America. Tell me the name you were called before you met Phillip Fry? Last updated: November 1, 2003 "Dwelling No." Some of the most common or popular last names in the 1800s included Robinson, Clark, and Smith. Almost every major tome on slavery discusses slave naming practices in some form or fashion. You can read the introductory maps for a high-level guided explanation, view the timeline and chronology of . 1412 S. Spoede Rd., St. Louis, MO 63131-2557. please contact the History and Genealogy Department. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? But once freed most immediately chose surnames, with or without keeping their accustomed name. European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil, France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean, France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789, George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax, Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World, Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World, Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The, Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian, Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas, Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World, Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833, Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The, Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World, Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic, Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy, Napolon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World, Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History, Native American Histories in North America, Native Americans and the American Revolution, People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe, Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World. However, research byLisa D. Cook and colleagueshas revealed evidence of racialized names from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By country & year of birth. 3. . ", "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)", "Where does the family start? Q. "More than half of the surnames are derived from the Christian or fore-name of the father," [1] and based on a total of 3,253,800 people, nearly 18 in every 100 persons was known by one of these fifty surnames. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. A. I was first called by that name in the family of Col. Morrow in whose service I was in Louisville, Ky., just after the war. Wheatley was traded into slavery at the age of 7 or 8 and imported to North America. I was called mostly Lewis Smith till after the war, although I was named Dick Lewis Smith After the War, I was wearing the name Lewis Smith, but I found the negroes were taking the names of their fathers, like the white folks. Delva Caps statement implies that choosing his own surname was a part of exercising his newfound freedom. Enslaved people resisted in ways large and small. My maternal grandmother was an Auber. Thomas: Thomas is a common surname of biblical origin meaning twin. Questions about slave naming intersect with some of the major debates in slavery studies (especially regarding Creolization and the formation of Atlantic Creoles) and can illuminate issues about the ethnicity of African slaves, the personhood and agency of those enslaved, the nature of kinship structures among the enslaved, and the survival of African cultural practices in the diaspora. i did a simple search of the 1860 slave schedule using the name Culbert and came up with slaveholders in MS,VA,NC,AL,GA and SC holding 17 enslaved people. 6. . Danish West Indies, Denmark, Records of Enslaved People, 1672-1917 Each name was a clue to her origins. Several of the other slaves were sold to various slave owners. I belonged to him until emancipation. Flora, the name of the Roman goddess of flowers and spring, who enjoyed eternal youth, is one of the gently old-fashioned girls' flower names we think is due for a comebackalongside cousins Cora and Dora. Both are excellent researchers and historians. Claudia Bautista,Santa Monica, Calif. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. -Thich Nhat Hanh, evolve theme by Theme4PressPowered by WordPress, Maryland Genealogical Society Holiday Luncheon, December 2017-2, Washington FHC Annual Conference, May 2011, Baltimore Family History Conference, October 2017-2, International Black Genealogy Summit, September 2016-2, Carroll County Genealogical Society Dinner, June 2018, Baltimore Family History Conference, October 2017, Reginald Lewis Museum, September 2011-2.jpg, Maryland State Archives Family History Festival, October 2014-2, Central Maryland AAHGS Meeting, March 2013, Robyn, Vonda, Andrea and Glenn, NGS Conf., May 2014, Maryland Genealogical Society Holiday Luncheon, December 2017-1, Howard Comm. Rounding out the Top 40, here are the next 30 most common names among African-Americans and Caribbean people: Taylor (Jayceon Terrel Taylor "The Game") Wilson (Charlie Wilson) Moore (Shemar Moore) White (Barry White) Lewis (Carl Lewis) Walker (Jimmie J. J. Walker) Green (Al Green) Thompson (Kenan Thompson) Washington (Denzel Washington) -Unknown, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)" Location the owner of ones ancestor is crucial for an African American genealogist to trace his family before 1870. For descendants, I would add the substantial emotional impact of seeing an ancestor's name attached to a dollar value, or being valued in a list with silverware and cattle. The fifty most common Victorian surnames in England and Wales for 1853 are listed in alphabetical order below. -Elbert Hubbard, "Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts." Alfred "Teen" Blackburn (1842-1951), one of the last living survivors of slavery in the United States who had a clear recollection of it. Along with records from churches,manumission societies, enslavers, and estate settlements, these documents provide a vast pool of data from which to trace patterns and trends from the colonial period through emancipation. There was often a fluidity to the surnames that enslaved people had. It helps me to understand the complexity of surname variation I have found in researching the ancestral patterns of an African-American cemetery in my local area. Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation. I love that your example shows two brothers, who came to different conclusions about their surnames. The practice was common until its abolition in 1865 with the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.. For the time being, we are using this as the Slavery Plantation umbrella or portal. I found in the Civil War registry, an enslaved man who enrolled in the infantry under the name of Wash Ellis. The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Familys Journey to Freedom, A Thank You Letter from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Plantation Records Key Link to African American Past . Anouilh. Expand or collapse the "in this article" section, Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic, Slave Names on Emancipation and after Slavery, Expand or collapse the "related articles" section, Expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section, African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World, Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies, Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries, Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The, Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America, Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World, Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas, Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World, Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World, Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World. To date there are no book-length studies covering the naming of slaves across the Anglophone Atlantic, but Burton 1999 and Kaplan and Bernays 1997 provide useful entry-level discussions for the Caribbean and mainland United States, respectively. In 1870, he is listed as John Washington. Rather than being derived from the supernatural world, European given names were a mere handle or tag. CAs Push to Restore Voting Rights to System-Impacted Individuals Still in Custody, Eli Lilly to Cap Out-of-Pocket Insulin Costs, Asm. In the late 1830s, Nathaniel Terry of Todd County, Kentucky died leaving a plantation of fifty slaves. 3. The highest percentage of African names was found among male slaves in the eighteenth century, when . There are 15 tables, blank and editable for you to populate, as well as samples of using each. Thank you for commenting, and continued luck to you in your research. I liked the name better than Octavia, and so I took it with me to Danville, and was never called anything else there than that name. In 1801, the British government took the first census for Great Britain and Ireland. Since those are the countries from which many of America's original settlers came, it's hardly surprising. 19. LOTTIE had been the name of the nurse before me and so they just continued that same name. is for you. Q. I first wrote about this in this 2009 post: http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2009/09/calvin-r-yarborough-where-it-all-began.html, And,then, more recently in 2013, here: http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2013/11/many-rivers-to-cross-my-priscilla.html. If the slaveholder or another free white man was their father, many Creoles did use either is first or last name as a surname. -George Burns, "Where does the family start? Isaac evolved from the name Yitzchaq, derived from the Hebrew word, Lysander is a distinctive Greek name that could be thought of as a more creative cousin of Alexander. Miracle, (Old English and Latin Origin) Derived from the first name Mauritius meaning "dark". And again, as a white Southerner whose ancesters were NOT slaveowners, your blog is helping me to understand the real and horrible legacy of the peculiar institution. The quote below, from a Southern Claims Commission file, is one of the most powerful and one of my favorites to use in lectures: I enlisted under Ross because that was my fathers name. It can be a difficult path, but just might be reachable. Ones occupation also set the naming method, such as Sheperd, Cooper, or Smith. Im jealous;) The common names there (Marie, Louise, etc) would test anyones genealogical skills, so I take my hat off to you. Copyright 2023 Facing History & Ourselves. Former slaves often made up surnames based on their occupations. This was the case with several others from Wessyngton. Kindest regards, It means 'clerk' or 'secretary'. -Winston Churchill, "The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never ever introduce yourself to had life not done it for you." Im very familiar with the work of Gwendolyn Hall and Elizabeth Shown Mills. Osprey Publishing 2008. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. I am the identical person who served in the said companies under the name of Lewis Smith. And this example from another pension file shows how even the given name of this enslaved woman was held under little regard: Testimony of Mollie Russell (widow of Phillip Fry), September 19, 1911: Q. This topic interests me greatly and Id like to do more research. See more details in the flier here and they are available for purchase for $10 . Names from the Bible were another common practice, for given and surnames. Prior to the emancipation of the American slaves in 1863, those African-Americans held in bondage had usually just one or two given names. . See footnotes for source information. This lively Old Testament nature name (belonging to one of the three beautiful daughters of Job) may be missing from the current US Top 1000 list, but it ranks highly here on Nameberry making it one to watch! Picked by several celebrities (a couple of times even for a girl), adding up to an enthusiastically recommended choice. 1. LOTTIE had been the name of the nurse before me and so they just continued that same name. Also included here are common names among slaves, many of which were classical and had ties to the Bible or mythology, such as Keziah and Venus. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. Cora: We first fell in love with this short baby girl's name from Downton Abbey, but Cora was already popular in the 1800s, meaning 'maiden' or 'good'. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable enough about African and Caribbean research in the areas you name. Bradley was the last man owned em. Another common practice was to select a surname that fit the personality of an individual, such as Hardy or Rambler. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantation's blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions, Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic, Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism, Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763, Slavery in British and American Literature, Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies, Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of. In fact, it's not even past. Have you visited the Whitney Plantation yet? However the frequent rebellions by . ", "No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished? Thank you so much for your kind words. Available from https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2014.174.8?destination=/explore/collection/search%3Fedan_q%3Denslaved%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dobject_type%253A%2522Photographs%2522 (accessed May 6, 2022). Thats a goal that I am working towards. My fathers name was John Crosby and he lived in the town of Geneva, Alabama, I had two brothers and one sister. When I was born my mother was known as Phillis Smith and I took the name of Smith too. The link was not copied. Others were more promiscuous. Chery Meaning: derived from the Latin Cariacus, which means "land belonging to Cariu"; darling Origin: French 5. Harris: A patronymic meaning son of Harry. Register now! One of my grandfathers in Africa was called Jeaceo, and so I decided to be Jackson. Even tiny steps are huge in someones life. That alone can make if difficult to research an African- American family during those years. Slaves were generally listed with just one name and thus with little to none of the genealogical information recorded for free whites. Students learn about the period of violence in the South from 1873-1876 and examine its role in influencing elections and ending Republican control of Southern state governments. After emancipation, he became William Smith. It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. St. Louis County Library. They identified 21 distinctly Black male names, among them biblical classics such as Abraham and Moses, and word names including Freeman and Prince. Q. Brutus) and a private name (e.g. I have been a researcher, writer, and lecturer for over twenty-five years. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Cheryll Cody, "'There Was No Absalom on the Ball Plantation': Slave-Naming Practices in the South Carolina Low Country, 1720-1865," American Historical Review 92 (June 1987). In instances where slaves were sold from their families and they did not retain their previous owners surnames, they named their children for parents, sisters and brothers to keep a connection with their families. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? Former slaves also interchanged surnames on census records. CLARKE - The name comes from 'clerk, a clergyman, a scholar, one who can read and write' and is most prevalent in England, where some 89,337 people are recorded with this surname. Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. Robyn, Unraveling the origins of FPOC and slaves in Francophone Louisiana takes some thinking outside the fact, meticulous research ,familiarity with the local culture, history and a bit of serendipity on your side. You are the continuation of each of these people." Another interesting fact is that Creole surname use also evolved over time and varied from record to record with the same person. Youll often see the word degraded used in the academic references; these were all attempts at degradation. I have found only one very rare example of a slaveholders inventory, that lists the slaves along with their surnames. 2. I am not able to find any slaveholders in the Versailes area by the name of Ellis. Thank you, my dear friend, for adding this about enslaved people owned in the Caribbean is really important, as some of the customs were certainly different. Are you thinking this woman Eliza Ellis was married to Wash Ellis? The slave schedules of 1860 Arkansas do not give the names of the slaves. Thomas mother, younger brothers and sisters remained with the Black family. The last U.S.census slave schedules were enumerated by County in 1860 and included 393,975 named persons holding 3,950,546 unnamed slaves, or an average of about ten slaves per holder. A. I was first called by that name in the family of Col. Morrow in whose service I was in Louisville, Ky., just after the war. An enslaved child sold away from their parents at a young age to the Deep South would probably have a different sense of naming than enslaved children who were able to grow up in the presence of their parents and extended family. Genealogy becomes so much more than just names and dates, it really feels like a true passion indeed. This mini-lesson helps students define the term, learn what forms reparations can take, and consider what reparations should be offered for slavery and other racist policies. This page is currently showing names ranked from 1 to 1000. i have no way to confirm this. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantations blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. (Media Note: If you quote a post, please credit me by name, Robyn N. Even that feels like something. But, my mtdna also said I share ancestry with the Kru people of Liberia and the Mende from Sierra Leonne! 42. > | Index main page>| Index by slave owner's name, Index to "Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863-1865"(NARA Microfilm Publication M1894 - 6 rolls). At her death when Thomas was ten, he was sold to Solomon Cobbs who lived nearby. The population was more than 16 million and the industrial revolution was under way, which debunks any perception of a broadly colonial society. Turner was deeply religious,. Abel, et al. 41. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. . Slavery was coexistent with the founding in 1670 of the first permanent colony in South Carolina, and early official records occasionally contain the names of slaves.3 An inventory of the estate of Francis Jones in 1693 lists 'a negro man Jack' and 'a negro Woman name Jugg.'4 An inventory of the The campaign in Britain to abolish slavery began in the 1760s, supported by both black and white abolitionists. Lastly,emancipation itself often provoked many to choose new surnames, one of the few actual freedoms freedmen had. Robyn. Nameberry is a registered trademark of Nameberry, LLC. Baptiste Meaning: derived from the name Bautista; the Spanish form of Baptist Origin: Spanish 3. Thanks for adding your very experienced voice to the conversation. The majority of these slaves used the surname Lewis instead of Washington. All of them are alive in this moment. 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