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Popular African American Names Among Americans. The origin of the names below are determined by users. If you disagree with any of the names, be sure to click the name and submit your vote for the origin you believe to be most accurate.
- Biblically Inspired Names and Meanings
- Arabic and Muslim Names and Meanings
- French-Inspired Names and Meanings
- Historical African American Baby Names and Meanings
African American culture is heavily invested in the Christian church. Africans brought here as enslaved people were often forced to convert to Christianity and attend church. Attending church may have been the only free time some plantation owners granted their slaves. As a result, enslaved African Americans turned to God and the church as a place ...
Civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali inspired many African Americans to convert to Muslim or to at least learn and be influenced by African Muslim culture and history. Historians estimate that 10-30% of Africans brought to the Americas as slaves were Muslim. As a result of interest in African Americans tracing their roots, there was...
Many of the West Indes and parts of Africa were settled or ruled by the French. Louisiana and parts of the American south were also French-occupied, which resulted in a unique language called Creole.
Because America is indeed the world’s melting pot, many cultures have inspired names we think of today as popular Black names.
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- #50 Boy: Alexander. - Rank in the 1980s: #50. - Average annual babies born in the 1980s: 81,995. - Rank in 2018: #11 (11,989 babies born) Alexander is a name that has stood the test of time in terms of popularity, all the way back to Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.
- #50 Girl: Allison. - Rank in the 1980s: #50. - Average annual babies born in the 1980s: 62,333. - Rank in 2018: #69 (3,678 babies born) A derivative of Alice, which comes from the French "noble and graceful," Allison become increasingly less popular between the 1980s and today.
- #49 Boy: Jesse. - Rank in the 1980s: #49. - Average annual babies born in the 1980s: 85,919. - Rank in 2018: #185 (2,126 babies born) Jesse Jackson became one of the most influential African American civil rights leaders of the age and became a promising presidential candidate in both 1984 and 1988.
- #49 Girl: Kathryn. - Rank in the 1980s: #49. - Average annual babies born in the 1980s: 62,443. - Rank in 2018: #453 (692 babies born) With a wide variety of spellings and a popular name in the Christian world, Kathryn comes from the Greek origin meaning "chaste, pure."
Jun 13, 2006 · In the 1970s and 1980s, names beginning with La- such as Lashonda and Lashay were most popular. In the 1990s, Sha- names such as Shameka, Shanae, and Shaniqua were fashionable. In 2004, names starting with Ja- or ending in -iyah such as Jakayla, Jamya, Janiyah, and Taniyah were in vogue.
- Cleveland Kent Evans
Jan 29, 2024 · Along with Abraham and Prince, other early African American names currently in the US Top 1000 include Alonzo, Athena, Daphne, Elijah, Isaiah, Israel, King, Phoebe, and Titus. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa.
- Sophie Kihm
African American names are an integral part of African American tradition. While many Black Americans use names that are popular with wider American culture, a number of specific naming trends have emerged within African American culture.
Top names of the 1980s. The following table shows the 200 most popular given names for male and female babies born during the 1980s. For each rank and sex, the table shows the name and the number of occurrences of that name.
