A Black American History of Names

Ray’N Lenora lol 💕

Was not expecting to see or hear my name at 16:37 . Especially hear it correctly. Shoutout to your mom for almost naming you that 😂

Nonclarion Barkledarkle

I'm one of those that got a white sounding name for reasons this video illustrates well.

i’m a black girl with a uniquely black name (not gonna say it for privacy reasons) and it’s a cannon event for a white teacher/doctor/whoever to COMPLETELY mispronounce it in the exact same way 😭

6:59 "American-heroes(???) 😂😂😂

Alexiel

Can we talk about those ridiculous long plastic nails, or the insanity of wearing scrub brushes on your eyes? Tf is up with that, it's not sexy, looks like clown makeup. Like, I see everyone looking sideways at them, including Black men. Who are Black and Brown women wearing these for? And don't say yourselves bc that is just BS. Is it just another version of the internalized racism via self sabotage behavior, fetishism and objectification of yourselves? Such a bizarre thing to do to your body.

I had an uncle named Cardboard.... I never found out what his real name was.

Afeni is a cool name, jetty would be a cool name. I find it interesting that black people can have a nickname that's different than their given names

If Mohammad Ali was beating the crap out of me in a boxing ring, I think I’d call him WHATEVER HE WANTED to make the pain stop!!

1:18 — This reminds me of a character from the movie “Idiocracy” named Doctor Lexus. Incidentally, he was a white dude!

0:38 — Her parents could have stopped at “Roshandi”. That sounds pretty.

Black name/word nerd, in the flesh. Shouts at my NJ folk btw

I grew up with a kid named Freedom, due to his lifestyle, he may not be free currently. Brother named Jazmar.

I went to school with Prince and his 2 sisters Precious and Princess.

I knew a Inow (pronounced eye-now) I think they’re family was Muslim or 5 percenter. I think Supreme was his cousin. Not a nickname.

My sibling is a postal worker. They delivered mail to a Beyonce Hernandez.

I used to go to church. My ex pastor had a niece named Sky but it was spelled Ski ⛷️
During this era, I was mentoring a youth. He confides in me and tells me he likes this girl named Miracle.

This is the Black folk name video, but there’s a C list actress named Busy Philips. Her kids are named Cricket and Birdie.

We all know the best name of all time…which happens to belong to a Black lady…is Airwrecka McBride

I love your style 😂 funny and informative

"blacks will go back further with those kinds of names" they said.
Meanwhile Shaquille O'Neal is a US Marshal, rapper, DJ, retired basketball player who owns some Papa John's restaurants

I love the girl name Banana, 🍌 that's so cute

Do you have deep dives on specific historical figures? I’d love a deep dive on Chaka Khan, Malcolm X, and more about the black panthers in general.

I love how you give me so much content to binge watch and rewatch over and overrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ❤

my name is Omani-Mia and i’m the only one i know with my name and i loveeeeee ittttt. lol it’s literally apart of my identity. onomatopoeia is what i use to get called because i was always making noise and so loud 🤣🤣🤣

I’m a white hisp woman with a unique name (Miyana) I’ve seen only a few Japanese and black women have the same name but usually it’s pronounced differently. My mom said she liked Mia and Ana and just combined them lol (me-ah-nah). Both my sisters have unique and differently pronounced names. I knew four Hannahs growing up, but sorry that shit so boring. I think we need way more variety in names

My 2nd cousin's name is Charles. My Auntie (her Mother's) name was Henrietta.

I’m actually named after my mom’s favorite characters growing up. Alexis from Dynasty. My nickname, Foxy, comes from Foxy Brown, which also ties into my last name, Brown.

I named my daughter Portal and my son Lightning Björk. Björk was inspired by her song Venus as a Boy.

Inspiration was names people would remember.

I am doing a class on this in February at a small place book shop. I will love to use this as a resource if it’s okay with you. @intelexualMedia

Quantavius and Ladarius (or LaDarius) are fire names though…like..🤷🏾‍♀️🔥…is it not giving Roman, but Black?💅🏾🔥. Also Elexus, I love your name! And also, Quvenzhané Wallis’ name is FIRE 🔥. As a Nigerian American, I understand how names are important because nigerian names are literal in meaning, lol. So why can’t black names hold that same reverence? Elexus, ur video is an EDUCATION.

My name is Rais (meaning "King" in some African language) I was instantly given the nickname "Roc" once I entered school. I'm now nonbinary and go by "Siar" since I'm the opposite of what my parents expected 🫧

A year late… I-O!!!!

black naming conventions are so important to my community we find a nice middle ground between black american redneck american and native american made up example: Deja Mae Bears Den there are many black natives where im from along with that since a slave has a bit more nuance then the american ore european version lets say forced adoption (fave example most common youre kid was murdered by another tribe the family of the murderer has to adopt there youngest to be raised by the victims family and no treating them worse for these backgrounds was HEAVILY frowned upon youde be looked at like you were a disney villain) lmao anyway you will always find more about us marring escaped slaves so much so example the descendants of sacagawea today i believe a good amount of them are black and indigenous

My name is Keynesia (key-knee-see-uh) and the amount of times I get that my name is “too hard” or “too much” is crazy. I haven’t always love my name, but as I’ve aged I love it so much.

I no longer have my membership with Bright Cellars but I do still have several bottles. They just stopped sending me wines that I liked, but something that I really did like about the company are those informational cards, that I still refer to, and if your bottles suffer damage in shipping they will send you a whole new box of those wines.

I’m a white Canadian girl named Naema - pretty unusual here. I’ve had a lot of questions about my name, especially when I worked customer service. No one ever said anything too strange or off putting other than calling my name exotic or unique, but I definitely got tired of explaining it all day

My great grandmother gave piano lessons to a girl named Cinderella Dardenella in the 1940's

My first name is Kayla and i always wanted the 'La' or 'Sha' or like a and 'i' instead of the 'y'! But my middle name is african

I'm from germany and grew up monolingual, which means that when I started to learn english, EVERY english name was new to me; even the "white" ones that we have in germany, I had to learn how they're pronounced differently. This means every name was foreign to me, and having to learn how to pronounce them is a concept that's very natural to me. I find it extremely disrespectful to not care for something as simple as learning the pronunciation of a foreign-sounding name. Since I also didn't have the internalized, taught social bias of these foreign names, I never negatively judged what I later found out were typical african american names - actually quite the opposite, I oftentimes found myself thinking these names were especially beautiful exactly due to their uniqueness.
I also full heartedly agree, your mother is indeed very iconic for naming you Elexus Jiondé!! A name I've never heard before this video, and I think it's both so cool yet elegant, personally.
I myself have an extremely uncommon name, that is not typically german at ALL despite me being fully german, and I absolutely love my name!

By the way, I really love your videos, especially the way you're presenting the content (for example, the speed in which you talk, it is a pet peeve of mine when people talk too slowly). I have been getting great recommended videos of african american female creators recently, and I love learning about what probably has to be one of the least reported demographics in the western world. I am very aware of social issues and find myself saddened by the way this world, even "first world countries" treat women and how it has negatively affected women even in "priviliged" countries, and also my own life in so many ways, but from those "priviliged/first world" countries, in my opinion I have the most respect and urgent hope for a change of the hardships of african american women have to endure, and for the history of what they already had to endure to finally not be considered "unimportant" anymore. I first realized that reported african american issues don't directly translate into african american women's issues, when I found out that in the civil war african american men mostly fought for their own rights and not the ones of african american women (a fact that was not mentioned at all in my history/english class). Since then I've been learning so much about many erased parts of african american women's history as well as current issues. I found your video about the "hygiene olympics" very insightful as well. I really hope that in my lifetime I'll see all women living in the way we deserve, peaceful, appreciated and free.

I am obsessed with this list, ty!!! Some of my favs (mind you theres 79 pages so I'm only in the beginning of the alphabet lol):

Alicestine
Angeline
Arelia
Aura (perioddd!!)
Auvelia
Blondiva
Callena
Calysta
Caola
Clementine
Cleobelle
Cleola
Clover
Corinda
Delphinia
Docinda
Eluna
Elzora

My future children are in trouble, you should've never gave me this information bc some of these are about to be put back into circulation LMAO

My name is Travelle, once I got in middle school it got shortened to Tre as a nickname

18:51 but people like to shit on trans people… it’s wtev

This is some real American history.

I have a unique name, it's Jetavia. Its cool because Jt has the same name as me but spelled "Jatavia" instead

I am white and my name is Junius but I go by Junie for short. I've noticed that the only people I've ever met who know another person named Junie are black people, not sure if it's short for anything (probably not Junius lol) or if it's even a common black name at all but it's just interesting to me.

My name has made it hard for me to introduce myself to woman.

Beyoncé's original name in France is BOYANCE, BOYANCÉ, BOIANCE PRONOUNCE ( BOH-YANSSS)

Very interesting video wow

My name is India Eboneè ( eh buh nay ) and It’s really the perfect level of creativity

My name is Qua-niesha, and yes, it impacts my ability to be employed, and I don't even look for white collar jobs. I am only seeking retail, fast food, and hospitality jobs; they still won't hire me. My favorite name is Quvenzhané's because she's the only one with a name somewhat similar to mine. Many celebrity name changes don't inspire much hope in me because they're still attractive in white eyes even if they face antiblackness. It's like a hierarchy to ghetto names. I didn't just have to deal with white people mocking me or downplaying my experience but black peers with Anglo names, stylized (e.g Azia for Asia or Kala for Kayla) or not, mocking me cause my name was too ghetto. It's all about assimilation. I'm aware. It hurts though, and makes me ashamed of liking my own name.

The ghetto black names are so annoying, stop it. Nobody wanna take a lunch break with lafonda and DayQuil

listen i think the one on Oprah has a whole other thing going on😭