What's In A Name?

In the 60’s and 70’s Muhammad Ali would often antagonize African American opponents by referring to them with the incendiary epithet Uncle Tom. 

The term originally referred to the heroic title character of Harriet Beacher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but was later transformed into an insult used by blacks to refer to those blacks who colluded with the enemy, which was invariably, the white man. 

Ali calculatingly and successfully used this strategy to get black audiences to side with him in big match-ups against the likes of George Foreman, Ernie Terrell, and most famously, Joe Frazier.

In most cases, the accusation was unfounded and unprovoked.  When asked why he referred to these men using such offensive language, Ali would often cite his opponent’s insistence on referring to him by the name Cassius Clay, rather than the name given to him after he joined the Nation of Islam in 1964, and the name he is presently known as, Muhammad Ali. 

Although Cassius Clay was the name given to him at birth, the name under which he won his Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960, and the name under which he won his first heavyweight title, Ali had since publicly repudiated it as a "slave name", as was taught to him by the leaders of his new faith.

The notion of a slave name is something that I’ve been hearing about as far back as I can remember, and I always thought I knew what it meant.  But it wasn’t until recently that I decided to take the time to investigate and ponder the true significance of the term.  So I asked myself, was Cassius Clay really a slave name?  Is my name a slave name?  And if so, what does that mean?

During the 60’s Blacks around the world were undergoing something of a renaissance which saw them embrace their African roots and reject symbols of European imperialism.  At that time, it wasn’t uncommon for some of the more radical blacks to change their names to reflect their new-found self-awareness.  Some of the prominent black thinkers and activists who spearheaded or followed this trend include, Kwame Ture, Assata Shakur and Amiri Baraka. 

Despite the trend, individuals with African names comprised a small minority, as the vast majority of African-Americans still had names that were also very common among whites.  This overlap began to subside in the early seventies and has steadily decreased ever since. 

By the 1990’s, 40% of black girls born in California were given names that were exclusively black, meaning none of the approximately 100,000 white girls born in the state in that year was given that name.  Many of these names are actual African names but a large portion of them are merely African-sounding names invented by the parents or taken from earlier names created by African-Americans, such as Laqueesha.

Also popular among these modern African American baby names are those which are taken from the Arab and Muslim world.  These include names such as Jamal, Malik, and Ayesha.  While many of these names are prevalent throughout Africa, especially East Africa where some of the indigenous languages carry a heavy Arabic influence, these names are not African in their origin.  Indeed much of the Arab influence throughout Northern and East Africa is a direct consequence of Islamic imperialism and the Arab slave trade, which makes Muhammad Ali’s use of the term “slave name” somewhat ironic. 

Although it wasn’t as rigidly structured along racial lines as the transatlantic slave trade, the Arab slave trade was every bit as ruthless and imperialistic.  In its latter stages, East Africans provided much of the slave labour for the Islamic empire and even today, throughout the Arab world, blackness is associated with slavery and inferiority.  From the Sudan to Iraq, blacks endure a form of second-class citizenship that would easily rival that which Ali so vocally denounced in the Southern United States. 

In Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, the holiest cities in the Islamic faith and the spiritual and geographic centre of the Muslim world, slavery was only abolished in 1962, nearly 100 years after blacks in the United States were officially emancipated with the signing of the 13th amendment.  It is also interesting to note that this legislative change in Saudi Arabia occurred only two years before Muhammad Ali changed his name.

But even if we disregard Ali’s choice of name following his supposed enlightenment, his characterization of his and other blacks’ birth names as “slave names”, was itself a gross over-simplification.

Prior to the 18th century most blacks in the British West Indies had only one given name and no surname.  This given name was usually chosen by the master and often was based on certain physical or behavioural characteristics of the slave.  Slaves would be given names such as Beauty, Carefree, Monkey, and Villian. 

Slaves in the United States also had unique slave names and could be beaten if caught using the first names of reputable whites.  As is the popular belief, most slaves were forced to take on the surnames of their owners or other prominent planters from the area both in the United States and in the West Indies.

(It should also be noted that often times, slaves were biologically fathered by the slave master as a result of him forcing himself upon his female servants.  And so surnames in these instances were coincidentally a product of both slavery and ancestry.) 

However, most slaves changed their names after they were freed, many choosing the names of prominent figures such as George Washington.  So a lot of the names currently used by North American and West Indian blacks aren’t slave names in the way that I once understood them to be.  Many were actually chosen by former slaves, and some happen to be surnames inherited from non-slaveholding European ancestors.

As for my name, I have yet to ascertain the source of the name James and exactly how or why my grandfather came to be known by it.  I know the name’s origin is Anglo-Saxon and so, in all likelihood, my being the descendent of slaves has played some role in how I got it.  And I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

Orlando Patterson, one of the world’s foremost scholars on slavery, points out that,

A man’s name is, of course, more than simply a way of calling him.  It is the verbal signal of his whole identity, his being-in-the-world as a distinct person.  It also establishes and advertises his relation with kinsmen.

To that I would add, not only is it an advertisement of ones relationship to her or his kin, but it expresses ownership of the legacy passed down by those kin who came before us, both in terms of their achievements and their shortcomings.  I couldn’t think of a greater legacy than that of a people who persevered through a lifetime of backbreaking labour, 18 hours a day, 6 days a week, with zero remuneration, in the faith that their children, or their children’s children would have a shot at a better life.  If these people had worked on Bay Street, they would have made partner before they were old enough to rent a car. 

So I embrace that legacy and that experience, not for the brutality and immorality of the enslavers, but for the strength and courage of the enslaved.  If “James” was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.