Baby names of African-American Origin

African American baby names have their roots in Africa. They are part of the historical experience of the African-American people, whose total or part  ancestor  faced slavery in the 16th century with black Africans forcibly taken to Spanish and English colonies in America as slaves. Most of them belonged to the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa, West and Central African.
During enslavement, many times the owners assigned the slaves’ names based on what kind of work they forced them to do. Some African-Americans that were made to pick cotton, have last names such as Cotton, reflecting the occupation.
After emancipation, many free men and women adopted the surnames of their former owners as their own. Some African Americans in the U.S. took on the surname Freeman, while others adopted the names of popular historical or contemporary figures of social importance, such as former presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson.
Many African Americans changed their names to Western ones, Biblical names,  Muslim names, after adopting Christianity or Islam as religion, and others have changed their names out of the belief that the names they were given at birth were “slave names”.
Nowadays, modern African-American baby names appear by new spellings following the new trends of unusual spellings of baby names, the wide use of capital letters as names like K.C., unusual use of hyphens and apotrophes.
African American baby Names are used in many parts of the world besides U.S. and Africa because many baby names are decendants of other origins like French origin, Latin origin, English origin, Greek origin etc.
Browse through our wide selection of African American baby names to find the perfect name,  along with meaning, pronunciation, popularity and additional information regarding it.