A note on black naming practices

[Amy West]

>Date:    Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:54:12 -0500
>From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: A note on black naming practices
>
>For all that I know, this may still be a custom. But, IAC, my mother -
>97 on 9 January - has informed me that *way* back in the day, it was
>often customary for black children to be named after *foreign*
>dignitaries. E.g., Cudn Pope Harrold was actually "Pope Leo [XIII]
>Harrold" and Cudn Hallie Prothrow. was actually "Hail Victoria
>Prothrow."

The inclusion of title and salutation as well as the foreign aspect
is *very* interesting.

>Probably everyone here of any level of maturity is aware of the
>once-extreme popularity of "Roosevelt," still alive in the name of
>Rosevelt[sic] Colvin of the New England Patriots. However, the most
>extreme instance that I know of was my Saint Louis buddy, Frank
>Willis, actually "Franklin Delano Roosevelt Willis."

This was an older tradition, was it not? I know that my husband's
German-American family had a Grover Cleveland Jaekel and George
Washington Jaekel a couple generations back. (I think they were great
or great-great uncles.)

I have to wonder if with these two cases, and the Martin Luther
Kings, we have not only honoring memories, but also assimilation to a
dominant culture going on? If so, is the foreign dignitary
tradition/variant doing the same thing, or is it still marking the
named as "different"?

---Amy West

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