One of the first things enslavers did during enslavement was strip kidnapped Africans of their names. They renamed enslaved people with Christian or other “classic” European first names and gave the enslaved their surnames.
But Black folks resisted this erasure in the most creative way.
For us, nicknaming is a form of protection, a love language, and a rejection of white supremacy. Our families and friends often lovingly use nicknames in Black communities, and it’s more powerful than many think.
Nicknames are a direct rejection of how our “government names” show up in white supremacist ways. When racists associate our names with crime, or discriminate in job applications based on our names, our nicknames help us exist outside of a racist reality – a sort of new world.
In Gullah Geechee culture, nicknames are called “basket names” and derive from West African naming patterns in countries like Sierra Leone. Basket names often relate to the day someone was born, a characteristic of the person, or a spiritual meaning.
Some West African cultures believe that the more names someone carries, the more spiritually protected they are.
With so much that white supremacy has stolen from us, they could never truly take our names. Nicknames give us the power to determine our own identities, create new worlds, and reject white supremacy. They can NEVER erase that!