**THE LONG SHADOW OF RENAMING:
How Power, Identity, and History Collided in Black and Native America**
By SDCNews One Writers Staff— Special to The SDC Institute
The History and Significance of Black Names: From Slavery to Modern Identity
By: Jordan Meadows | Staff Writer
Names are more than mere labels; they carry the weight of history, culture, and identity. For African Americans, names have long been a way to assert individuality, heritage, and pride. Yet, throughout history, names such as Lynishia, Laquisha, Shaqueen, Marquise, Neveah, Lucinda, and Felicia have sometimes been unfairly labeled as "black" or even "ghetto."
These names are far more than social stereotypes—they are deeply rooted in cultural significance. To understand the evolution of distinctively Black names, one must explore the complex history of naming practices for African Americans, stretching back to the time of slavery.
When enslaved Africans were brought to America, their names were often stripped away. In many cases, slave owners renamed their slaves to reflect their own cultural identity or biblical traditions, distancing them from their African roots.
Common names given to enslaved people included those from the Bible, such as Ruth, Joseph, Mary, and Noah. For a long time, African Americans were expected to carry names similar to those of white Americans, effectively erasing their original identities.
However, as African Americans gained some freedom and agency, the power of names began to shift. The names given to African Americans began to carry a new sense of meaning and identity, particularly as Black Americans sought to reclaim their heritage and assert their place in society.
Even before emancipation, during the antebellum period, names like Alonzo, Israel, and Presley were popular among enslaved people and their descendants. This shows that the practice of adopting Black names predates the Civil War and was tied to the development of a distinct African American culture.
For some, choosing a surname like Freeman or Washington was a way to affirm their newfound freedom. Others chose names from notable figures in Black history, such as Frederick Douglass. In addition, many formerly enslaved people chose to retain their enslaver's surname, either due to familial connections or because it provided a sense of stability in a world that was still hostile to Black people.
Names were also a tool of survival during Reconstruction. As Brandi Brimmer, a historian at the University of North Carolina, points out, many people changed their names to protect themselves from the threat of violence, particularly from groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
A significant turning point in the evolution of Black names came during the 1970s. According to the 2004 study, The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names by Roland G. Fryer and Steven D. Levitt, a profound shift in naming conventions took place within seven years. This change was particularly notable in racially isolated neighborhoods, where Black Americans began to assert their identity more boldly, influenced by the cultural movements of the time.
One of the key influences on this shift was the Black Power Movement, which grew out of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The Black Power Movement emphasized self-determination, independence, and pride in Black culture. This newfound sense of pride led many African American parents to choose names that reflected their roots and cultural heritage—many choosing names of Arabic origins.
Black Americans began tracing their roots back to Africa, and with that, names with Arabic and African origins gained popularity. Names like Aaliyah, Jamal, and Tariq became symbols of Black pride, linked to a sense of history and ancestral connection.
Though the use of Arabic names declined over time, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, a resurgence in distinctively Black names emerged. At the same time, some names started to be associated with socioeconomic status and even negative stereotypes. In particular, names like Mercedes, Lexus, and Chanel became linked to an idea of conspicuous consumption, with Black parents choosing names that reflected dreams of prosperity and success.
Despite these associations, the creativity and cultural roots behind names like Lakesha, Rashawn, and Shaquan are undeniable. These names often carried unique, poetic sounds and were influenced by African and Swahili traditions, as well as the rhythms and fluidity of jazz and hip-hop music.
While some view contemporary Black names as modern inventions, historical research shows that Black names have deep roots in American history. In fact, scholars have traced distinctively Black names back to the early 1900s, using census records and other historical documents.
For example, the names Booker and Perlie were nearly exclusively Black names, with the majority of individuals with those names in the early 20th century being African American. These names were often rooted in both empowerment and religion, with biblical names such as Elijah, Moses, and Isaac being common choices among Black families.
Rather than dismissing these names as symbols of negativity or inferiority, we should understand them as powerful markers of identity, reflecting the history of people who have constantly fought to define themselves on their own terms.
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SDC INSTITUTE'S QUESTION OF THE DAY:
By Kenneth Howard Smith
Why do the Christian White Church's and the government always rewrite the names of the real Black Indian Americans who were here 800 years before the first European white settlers touched the Americas?
People are from their countries, i.e., Spaniards from Spain, English from England, Chinese from China; Black Americans have no such land from where they come from, they are just coloreds, negroes,
African Americans, Black Americans, but not native Americans, which black Americans they are. It is understood that Reparations will never be paid to black Americans, because they are from here and are considered "prisoners of war"; while the Africans from Africa starting in 1619 will be paid reparations. And the way to keep reparations from these people is to keep changing their names and the places they are from.
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**THE LONG SHADOW OF RENAMING:
How Power, Identity, and History Collided in Black and Native America**
By SDCNewsOne — Special to The Chronicle
In the debate over who Americans really are — and who they once were — names often tell a story that textbooks try to forget. Across the rolling centuries between the Spanish entradas of the 1500s and the Civil Rights battles of the 1960s, American institutions have repeatedly renamed peoples they did not wish to understand, and reclassified communities they did not intend to empower.
For many Black Americans who hold oral histories of Native ancestry — families who describe themselves as “Black Indians” or “Indigenous Africans in America” — the question isn’t just about genealogy. It’s about why so many names were changed, why so many identities were reorganized by force, and why the American record still feels incomplete.
It’s a story tangled in colonial churches, government policy, race science, treaties, lost rolls, and centuries of power shaping the language of belonging.
**THE ERA BEFORE “DISCOVERY”
Long Civilizations, Short Memories**
Archaeologists have long known that sophisticated Indigenous civilizations existed across North America centuries before Columbus made landfall in 1492. The Mississippian cities at Cahokia thrived between 1050–1350 AD, with populations rivaling medieval London. The mound-builders at Poverty Point in Louisiana created monumental earthworks around 1700 BC — older than the Roman Republic.
What few Americans learn in school, however, is that Indigenous people were not a monolith. Communities along the Southeast coast and Mississippi River basin were notably ethnically diverse. Early Spanish chroniclers — such as those accompanying Hernando de Soto in the 1540s — described dark-skinned Indigenous groups in the Southeast, including the Yamassee, Washitaw, and some Creek bands, often noting physical traits Europeans associated with Africans.
These records don’t “prove” that all or most Black Americans were Indigenous. But they do confirm that African-appearing Indigenous groups existed, intermarried, traded, and fought throughout the South long before the English built Jamestown in 1607.
Which raises the question:
What happened to those names? Those identities? Those early people?
**THE COLONIAL NAMING MACHINE
Where Churches, Government, and Race Science Collided**
From the moment Europeans arrived, names became tools.
1. The Christian Mission System (1500s–1700s)
Spanish, French, and Anglican missionaries categorized Native groups through their own cultural lens — often renaming tribes, villages, and entire peoples because European languages lacked the ability or willingness to pronounce Indigenous names.
More importantly, many mission records reclassified Native peoples by skin tone, not culture — a European racial concept that did not exist in Native societies.
A dark-skinned Indigenous person might be labeled:
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moro (Moor)
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negro (Black)
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mulato
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mestizo
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or placed into a caste category like zambo (African-Indigenous)
These labels followed individuals for generations.
2. The English Colonial System (1600s–1776)
When the British arrived, they brought a hardened racial hierarchy — one that placed whiteness at the top and everything else in descending, permanent categories.
Colonial governments feared alliances between Africans and Native nations. To break those connections, laws emerged:
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Virginia Slave Codes (1705) reclassified free Native people as “Negro” if they lived among Black communities.
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South Carolina’s 1740 codes lumped “Negroes, Mulattoes, and Indians” together when they were enslaved.
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“Free persons of color” became a catch-all bucket for Native, African, and multiracial communities who did not fit the colonial scheme.
Over time, many Indigenous communities — especially in the Southeast — simply disappeared from the record not because they vanished, but because they were renamed.
**THE ERA OF ERASE AND REASSIGNMENT
The 1800s: Removals, Rolls, and Reclassification**
By the 19th century, American policy turned systemic.
The Indian Removal Act (1830)
Tens of thousands of Indigenous people were forced west. But not all left. Many stayed, blended into maroon communities, or hid in plain sight in rural settlements.
When federal enumerators came through, they often listed these families as:
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“Black”
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“Colored”
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“Mulatto”
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or simply “Free Negro”
Native identity on paper became a casualty of paperwork.
The Dawes Rolls (1898–1907)
Often cited today in tribal membership disputes, the Rolls themselves were deeply flawed.
Federal agents frequently overrode self-identification, placing dark-skinned Native families on “Freedmen Rolls,” whether they had African ancestry or not.
This permanently shifted land rights and federal recognition.
Historians now agree:
Many Indigenous families — especially those with darker skin — were placed under “Black” racial categories despite Native heritage.
**THE AFRICAN AMERICAN RENAMING CYCLE
From “Negro” to “Colored” to “Black” to “African American”**
Beginning in the 1600s, Black Americans inherited a unique burden: their names were almost always assigned to them, not by them.
Each new term reflected:
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political goals,
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census needs,
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scientific racism,
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or pressure to fit people into a racialized nation-state that did not want complexity.
Terms imposed at different eras:
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17th–18th centuries: “Negro,” “Black,” “Slave,” “Moor”
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19th century: “Colored,” “Mulatto,” “Free Negro”
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Early 20th century: “Negro” (reintroduced), “Afro-American”
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Late 20th century: “Black,” “African American”
What’s missing from that list is telling:
No category ever recognized Black Americans as Indigenous to this land, even though many carried Native ancestry, and some communities had lived here for centuries before European arrival.
Why? Because recognition brings rights — and rights bring land, resources, and claims the government did not want to honor.
THE REPARATIONS PARADOX
Discussions about reparations often focus on descendants of enslaved Africans brought to North America after 1619. But this framework leaves out several groups:
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free Black communities present in America long before 1619,
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African-Indigenous maroon settlements,
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and Native nations whose members were reclassified as “Black” to strip them of their identity.
Historians widely acknowledge that racial reclassification was used to deny land and legal recognition to communities who didn’t fit the white supremacist blueprint.
The deeper issue isn’t whether reparations will or won’t be paid — it’s that the classification systems themselves created generations of confusion, loss, and erasure.
**THE MODERN SEARCH FOR IDENTITY
What People Want Now**
Across the country, millions of Black families are digging into archives, DNA records, Freedmen Rolls, Spanish colonial papers, and oral histories — trying to stitch together a story that the government often rewrote.
They’re not looking to escape African heritage.
They’re looking to honor a fuller truth: one in which Black Americans may have multiple origins, including Native lineages obscured by centuries of renaming.
In a world where:
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Spaniards come from Spain,
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English come from England,
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and Chinese come from China,
Black Americans still wrestle with a national story that tells them they come from somewhere else — even when their ancestors walked this soil for a thousand years.
THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS
Why were names changed?
The simplest answer is power.
Naming is the oldest tool of control.
Erase a people’s name, and you erase their claim.
The deeper answer is that America, from colonization to the Civil War to Jim Crow to the present, has always struggled to accept identities that don’t fit into tidy racial boxes.
But the record is still there — in church ledgers, land deeds, Spanish journals, tribal archives, and family stories whispered across generations.
History is not finished.
Neither is the naming.
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