Black Americans were stripped of the naming infrastructure other cultures might take for granted, but the first names we give ourselves and our children reflect the traditions we've made and reclaimed.
In Alex Haley's miniseries Roots (1997), there's a scene that is well known within Black American households. The main lead of the series, Kunta Kinte (played by Levar Burton), is repeated whipped until he gives up his birth name. Part of breaking down enslaved people also included forcing out their cultural first names, while post-slavery tradition would append their former enslavers' surname as theirs.
To accept the name Toby, Kunta Kinte had to give up an identity. It is a powerful scene because it is an apt analog for the Black American experience that emerged with being brought to the United States. It is for this reason, I stand beside all parents who choose to reclaim some form of tradition and culture by giving their children culturally coded first names as it is much harder to do full-scale changes of surnames and retain family connections.
Mills probably refers to someone who worked at or lived near a mill. A geographical surname, pointing to a place or an occupation like is common in most cultures and languages. But it is not clear if my tie to that name is through ancestry or forced enslavement and ownership of the ancestors who passed that name to me.
At Harvard Business School I was in a class of 1000 people: three of us had the same surname. One was from a family who own a very well known chocolate brand, and the other was from what is now Israel. Outside of school, I will meet people with the same last name and before it gets awkward, I think there's a forgotten history of how our names came to be.
In some countries, last names (surnames) point to a village or stream in a particular region. The issue with colonialism is that names like Washington (belong to George and Denzel) are so pervasive, their direct line become much less a provenance and more a measure of imperial expansion.
The last name, for many Black Americans, is a locked door: the key belongs to someone else.
Freedom and reclamation allows you to dream bigger than your constraints. In a country where changing your last name is less possible (more so back then than it is now), choosing an inspired first name was a statement. It could reflect a cultural tradition, an ideal, or outright creativity that demands to be given space.
For some, it is self-naming and self-determination. Muhammad Ali was once Cassius Clay, a conscious choice to change both his first and last name. Musicians adopt stage names that reflect their purpose and power. Queen Latifah's given name is Dana Owens.
For Black parents, creating names that were fully novel was its own demonstration of power and worth. What is deemed ghetto in some places is considered creative in others. But constructing a lineage from the ground up should be respected even if the names chosen are not ones you'd give to yourself or others.
The SSA has published baby name counts since 1880 — every name given to at least five children per year in the United States. In Denmark, you cannot name your child whatever you want: there is an approved list. Germany, Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina all have similar approval systems.
The SSA data cannot tell us why a child was given a name, therefore attributions are speculative. What we know is that names do move: rising and failing. I attempt to triangulate with data to support a claim. It is why there are some names that I feel are inspired by a famous person, but the data is too noisy to present it as a strong argument.
When Jasmine spiked in 1992, we cannot know from SSA data alone how much came from Jasmine Guy on A Different World and how much came from Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, which released the same year. The data is directional. However, I try to bring in my lived experience to close gaps where possible.
Because there are no formal approvals required for names in the United States, we know that naming shifts likely connect to culture shifts. This series is explicitly about naming trends within the US.
Each episode uses Social Security Administration name frequency data to track how names move in response to cultural events.
Data source: Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications, National Data. ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
Methodology note: SSA data records names given to at least 5 babies per year. Data shown covers 1960–2019 unless otherwise noted. All counts reflect US births registered with Social Security. The data cannot record parental intent, regional variation within years, or names given to fewer than 5 children.
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