"Coffee" as the name of a female slave

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 12, 2009, at 10:52 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>
> ... As for the name "Coffee," either as forename or surname, of the
> thousands of black people that I've met over the course of more than
> seventy years, I've never met any so named or even so nicknamed.

Coffee is one of a family of surnames -- Coffey is a more common
variant -- of Irish origin, so i wouldn't expect it to be particularly
widespread as a surname for black people (though there are of course
routes for the spread of white surnames to black people).

arnold

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