Black given names in De-

[Michael Quinion]

Jonathon Green, the editor of the Cassell Dictionary of Slang,
has asked me to forward this query to the list. Any private
replies should be sent to him at <slang at crayford.demon.co.uk>,
not to me.

> Do you have any information on the prevalence and origin of
> the prefix 'De' in US Black given names? The style seems
> around 20 years old, and a book I am currently gutting for
> citations, "The Corner", by David Simon and Ed Burns, a
> 'documentary' of the Black underclass in Baltimore c. 1997, is
> full of them: 'DeAndre', 'DeAnte', 'DeQuan' et al. But I have
> often encountered it in all sorts of contexts.


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
<editor at worldwidewords.org>
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/>