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. Another common practice was to select a surname that fit the personality of an individual, such as Hardy or Rambler. 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). Forenames. The different spellings are due to the non-consistent spelling rules in Norway in the 1700s and 1800s. I am the identical person who was named called and known as Dick Lewis Smith before the Civil War and during the Civil War and until I returned home after my military service . . Elaine Fantham, Helene Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, H. A. Shapiro. Slaves are identified by given name under their masters. I made up my mind I'd find me a different one. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. How lucky you were to find that Freedmans Bank document! Wesley is one of a group of W-starting surname names reminiscent of the Old West that are making a comeback -- though it's not as well used as it was in the 1970s, when he ranked as high as Number 66. Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. There has been disagreement about whether it was slaveholders or the enslaved who gave the recorded names. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. This potential brother had been sold to a local and remained there in SC. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Abara: Originating from the Igbo group of West Africa, Abara means 'spirit'. James) will have . Slave Names Below are some best cute and catchy slave names: Infirm Mite Lunn Amanda Walter Garner Hannah Delia Bastard Inferior Weevil George O'Hanlon Jordan John Owen Rachel Fetid Spider Betty Nathan York John Wright Wicked Whelp Thornton Dick Field Robert Dick William Hunter William Sam Kiner Augustus Dick a/k/a Richard Ferguson Foul Beast We had to register as someone, so we could be citizens. I also have a Slavery and Freedom Collection available for $20. My Louisiana Creole ancestors who were free persons of color and former slaves practiced a unique naming tradition I think comes from Latin cultures. . Alfred Francis Russell (1817-1884), 10th President of Liberia. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Surnames. Florence, Fiorella, Fleur, and Flower are translations, but we like Flora best of all. This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 11:46 am and is filed under Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews. Recognizable patterns of change in names and naming practices are evident from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century and on through the 1860s. 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. However, the common practice by slaveholders was to only use the given names of enslaved people in documents such as estate papers, court and deed records. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. This was the case with several others from Wessyngton. Although it is not widely known, some African Americans used surnames before they were emancipated. It was after emancipation on that I went back to work for Col. Morrow and where I got the name "Lottie," as already explained. Farley, (English Origin) Victorian-era last names meaning "fern woodland". Thank you for your kind comment and I am glad my post helped some with the complicated reasons behind the surnames enslaved people had. The highest percentage of African names was found among male slaves in the eighteenth century, when . It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. 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. It comes from the same Greek root as 'ambrosia', the food of the gods, said to confer immortality. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. Some of these examples come from the wonderful book, Voices of Emancipation: I served [in the War] as Henry Lock, the Lock being my old Massas name but since the War I have taken name of Rollie., [Edward] was owned by Drury Stovall and went by the name of Edward Stovall. One thing for sure, historians are always expanding our knowledge on this topic.BTW, I am a big fan of your website and your work in the field! Col. Joshua John Ward of Georgetown, South Carolina: 1,130 Known as "King of the Rice Planters," Ward had 1,130 enslaved Blacks on the Brookgreen plantation in South Carolina. My maiden surname is Williams. The Language of Names. You can use the links below to view more common surnames. Both are excellent researchers and historians. See footnotes for source information. 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. These people are referred to as slaves, or as enslaved people. A. The following documents are excerpts from government records in which Dick Barnett and Mollie (Smith) Russell explain when and why they changed their names. I worked for him as nurse for his children, and my full and correct name was OCTAVIA, but the family could not catch on to that long name and called me LOTTIE for short. . I make extensive use of tables for organization, analysis and citation in my research, and they have proven very popular with genealogists. Picked by several celebrities (a couple of times even for a girl), adding up to an enthusiastically recommended choice. Here are some common black last names: Jackson Davis Brown Wilson Harris Lewis Clark Walker Hall Thomas Young Allen King Wright Scott Baker Adams Nelson Carter Mitchell Perez Roberts Turner Phillips Campbell Parker Evans Edwards Green Hall Baker Bell Coleman Crawford James Reyes Most Common Black Last Names Ethereal and delicate, Cassandra was in the Top 70 throughout the 1990s but is now descending in popularity. Testimony of Mollie Russell (widow of Phillip Fry), September 19, 1911: Q. On another branch, members of the Griffin family from around Campbell County VA all stuck together and are believed to have kept family bonds & name of their father after Emancipation. This lifelong quest has helped me to better know my familys past. In the early years, especially between the 1860 and 1880s, families even changed a surname several times until they settled on a certain one. Ebba: One of the more unique girl names from the 1800s. Interestingly, the five most common American surnames as of 2010 haven't changed that much over time and are Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, and Jones. Wide-ranging survey of naming practices in the (mainly Anglophone) Atlantic world both during and after slavery. It prohibited. Claudia Bautista,Santa Monica, Calif. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Thats a goal that I am working towards. Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? Major types on which most would agree are European place and literary names, European personal names in hypocoristic (pet or diminutive) form, biblical and classical names, and names of African origin. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Q. Names of prominent slaveholderse.g. In 1911, Barnett and Frys widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. this page. There are 15 tables, blank and editable for you to populate, as well as samples of using each. American slave owners or slaveholders were owners of slaves in the United States which typically worked either as agriculture laborers or house servants. Allard. I took the name of Jackson for the reason that I preferred to go by my fathers name, rather than the name of my last owner.. Tell me the name you were called before you met Phillip Fry? This had a profound impact on the Selfhood of each of the enslaveddisrupting ones presumed Mission in life, as indicated by ones name; shattering the sharing of personal and historical experiences, attitudes, and spirits towards life; and putting in disarray the philosophy of life framework and common sense values by which all Africans lived. "Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation." In The Anthropology of Names and Naming. Some of the most common or popular last names in the 1800s included Robinson, Clark, and Smith. 2023 The Voice of the Black Community in California. It had always been passed down in the family that Thomas has been owned by the Blacks. You can read about this in the following two posts on my blog. A great and timely article. I was called by that name all the time I was with the Morrows. 1. They called me OCK. Register now! 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. The surname Williams occurs roughly 550 times per 100,000 people in the U.S. You can find explanations for each of the table columns below, or use the following links to view more last names for different ancestries. No, I don't know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. Email:genealogy@slcl.org Fortunately, the French and Latin were excellent record keepers and the Catholics were obsessed with knowing the kinship of everyone. In the 1760s Anglo-American frontiersmen, determined to settle the land, planted slavery firmly within the borders of what would become Tennessee. In 2001, I began a process of transcribing names of some of the largest slaveholders and matching the surnames with numbers of African Americans on the 1870 . 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. The fifty most common Victorian surnames in England and Wales for 1853 are listed in alphabetical order below. If searching for a slave owner with the same surname of your ancestor fails, check marriage records for the slave owners. 1754 Excerpts from the Courant for June 22 to 29, 1754 at Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library - contain the names of some "runaway slaves" or indentured servants, and information about them. If the former slave had been befriended or assisted in getting established after the Civil War, they might have taken that persons name. Manifests - Alphabetical by Slave Names Return to Slave Manifests main page Click on each Slave name to view information on that voyage. They are held at The National Archives (Kew, England). I hope this post also helps us to think about how the surnames former slaves had were connected to their experiences in slavery. . My maternal grandmother was an Auber. I was bornthe child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. No superior alternative has yet been found. 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. A favorite of British novelists including Evelyn Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse, Ambrose has an air of blooming well-being and upper-class erudition. I am generally called Cap Sherrod but I was married under Cap Ross and have voted under the name Ross, A good many people call me Cap Sherrod because I belonged to Sherrod but I calls myself Cap Ross.. Several names have been added under the letter representing the person's last name. is for you. In 1801, the British government took the first census for Great Britain and Ireland. 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. Thanks for adding your very experienced voice to the conversation. He took his last enslaver surname. She was a Murphy.. Nameberry is a registered trademark of Nameberry, LLC. African Americans tended to use surnames associated with their own families instead of the last slave owner. -Unknown, "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you might as well make it dance!" Im jealous;) The common names there (Marie, Louise, etc) would test anyones genealogical skills, so I take my hat off to you. The private name served as a form of Selfhood Armor (you cant take all of me, White man!); gave them a sense of power over their captors; and provided their children with a sense of heritage and pride. The Voice of the Black Community in California, Last Updated on October 14, 2010 by Paulette Brown-Hinds. Several of the other slaves were sold to various slave owners. Thus, the patronymic surname can be effectively regarded as "keeper of the peace." This phenomenon is not unheard of with African American surnames. Women tended to have two names, and slaves often just had one. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Instead a wide variety of surnames came about that would be the family name for future generations. Many of these were names of heroesbut not Lincoln. Distinctively Black names were thought to have risen from the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, which promoted the use of names with connections to Africa. ", "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. One thing I envy about the Catholic church is the baptisms available for even the enslaved people there. Introduction. -William Faulkner, "Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. For example, Roll, Jordan,Roll has an entire chapter called The Naming of Cats, discussing slave names and The Slave Community has a very good chapter called The Slave Family. Two other books I like are Been In The Storm So Long by Leon Litwick (pgs 247-248)and Joining PLaces: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South by Anthony Kaye. The origins of this last name date back to the pre-medieval period. Can you steer me in the right direction? 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. Examples include: Francois, Jean, Pierre, and Leon for men; and Manon, Delphine, Marie Louise, Celeste, and Eugenie for women. Accueil > > Avr > 18 > Uncategorized > common last names for slaves in the 1800s. However, many African Americans faced a problem when they applied for their pensions. -George Burns, "Where does the family start? With mythological names rising, the handsome son of Zeus and god of medicine, music, and poetry among many other things might offer an interesting, if high-pressure, option. . 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. Is this the work of the evil spirits or from my bad karma? Is this my fate!To worsen matters, a given new European label applied only to one aspect of the nature (whereas his/her original name referred to a total identity) of the enslaved and this was an effective way to try to fragment a victims mindset. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. . My Vimeo ON Demand video page lists six videos you can choose from to watch for 3 months ($15 each): -Finding the Last Slaveowner: Guidance and Case Studies, -Cluster Research: Using Groups of People to Find Your People, -Using Deed Records to Uncover Your Family, -Putting it All Together: Making Sense of All the Research You've Done and, -More Than Just a Name: Incorporating Social and Community History Into Your Research. In order to receive their pensions decades later, these former soldiers and their family members had to demonstrate to the government that they were who they claimed to be. This event is $25. If we consider the diverse circumstances that the tragedy of slavery created, we can understand the reasons why. Many took the surname of famous or celebrated people; such as Lincoln, Grant, and Washington was very popular. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. Location the owner of ones ancestor is crucial for an African American genealogist to trace his family before 1870. The box for father states unknown in law. Her marriage record states her name is Sarah Charlotte Gale, her father being John Sinclair Gale! Just go to my Vimeo page and make your selection. 2019 (cited under the Anglophone Caribbean) includes a good general introduction to slave naming. Well, I got to thinking about all us slaves that was going to take the name Fitzpatrick. The existence of those surnames in the area would help to verify, but also, you are fortunate to have the important oral history of that name change in the first place, since so many of us dont. 42. A. Lottie Smith was my name and what they called me before I met Phillip and was married to him. Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. Edited by Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn, 178-199. Copyright 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Finding the Slave Who Bore Philomene Daurat. There is also another historian, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall who did work on African ethnicities in Louisiana, you can read more of that here if you havent seen that yet: http://whitneyplantation.com/the-louisiana-slave-database.html, Again, I applaud you for doing the research on the history of the areas where your ancestors livedmany researchers dont realize how crucial that understanding is. Brutus) and a private name (e.g. When I was born my mother was known as Phillis Smith and I took the name of Smith too. Through DNA matches, I believe I have recently found a brother of my mothers great grandfather. Derived from the word anull that is the Catalan language dominantly used in southern France, Anouilh means 'slow worm'. Other common surnames included Jones, Matthews, Sinclair, and Bennett, Price, and Gray.. I mean, really retro. Many Welsh surnames follow this pattern, with Jones (from 'John's son) being the most common. In fact, the previous enslaver widow sold most of the slaves. You are the continuation of each of these people.". South Atlantic Creole A Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900, Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685, Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World. The first published African-American poet & author Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa. In 1911, Barnett and Fry's widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. I presume no death certificate for her survives? He was a planter with 20,000 acres of land in East Florida and was at the forefront of slavery in The . The, 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. This happened mostly on large plantations where several individuals had the same first names and a surname was used to distinguish them from one another. Most Popular Names. This is another instance of oral history being a key component in tracing African American ancestry. In the 1930s, ex-slave Martin Jackson explained why he chose his last name after Emancipation: The master's name was usually adopted by a slave after he was set free. This was done more because it was the logical thing to do and the easiest way to be identified than it was through affection for the master. Turner was deeply religious,. 26 September 2021 [PAST EVENT]: Acclaimed genealogist Melvin Collier and I will be presenting an all-new 2-hour lecture titled More Than Just Names: Incorporating Social and Community History Into Your Research from 1:00-3:30 EST (please note it is Eastern Standard Time). Enslaved people remained legally nameless from the time of their capture until their purchase by American enslavers. There are a wide array of sources that provide us with slave surnames, from the slave narratives and interviews, to freedmans bank cards, runaway ads and Southern Claims Commission records. By country & year of birth. Dorothy, Doris or Dora: Meaning 'gift of God', this Victorian girl's name was popular in the 19th century. Hi Rodney, In 1836, William Turbeville died leaving an estate with several slaves who were brothers: Turner, Nelson, Simon, Jordan, and Jacob. All of them are alive in this moment. by John C. Inscoe, 2006; Revised May 2022 by NC Government & Heritage Library. I was only three years old when she died. When I was born my mother was known as Phillis Smith and I took the name of Smith too. She was the great patroness-goddess of the city of Athens. 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. Bernard Meaning: brave warrior Origin: French 4. Anthropologist Meyer Fortes's observation that the naming practices of any society "epitomize personal experiences, historical happenings, attitudes to life, and cultural ideas and values" holds particularly true for African American enslaved people. Or, the Slaves were given numbers or classical Greek names. Join my mailing list below to learn about upcoming webinars. Places; Login. After I had returned to Louisville from Danville, My sister, Lizzie White, got to calling me Mollie, and it was with her that the name started. Part of what drives me in this research, I think, is the feeling that I am reclaiming their stories, their names, and their very being, even if what I uncover is just a tiny bit. 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. Jonah, the name of the Old Testament prophet who was swallowed by the whale, only to emerge unharmed three days later, is increasingly appreciated by parents looking for a biblical name less common than Jacob or Joshua, yet not too obscure. This happened mostly on large plantations where several individuals had the same first names and a surname was used to distinguish them from one another. (Media Note: If you quote a post, please credit me by name, Robyn N. Slaves were generally listed with just one name and thus with little to none of the genealogical information recorded for free whites. 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. . By the late 19th century, England was home to about 300 surnames with traceable genealogy. Were there any famous slaves? Now, that parent's surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. For him, this meant claiming his new identity as a freedman and a citizen. 1. That alone can make if difficult to research an African- American family during those years. This is common. There are certainly methods you can used to try to verify some of the storyyou can look for Carrington and Williams slaveholders in the area in which your ancestor lived in the 1870 census. I am an engineer by day, but my true passion lies in genealogy. Going back a decade to the 1850 Slave Schedule, both William Wood and Samuel O. It means 'raven'. Seating is limited.
Why Did Josh Leave Dual Survival, Why Did Zara Cancel My Order, The Stranger In The Lifeboat Spoiler, Articles C