What's In A Name

Most of us were given our names. Before the age of understanding, your parents or guardians and anybody else who was old enough to utilise language would address you by your given name. Some people change their name when they reach a legal age and have the power to do so. Some do it for personal reasons - they never liked their name - others for business reasons.

Reg Dwight - Royston Edward Dwight - changed his name to two surnames and went on to achieve great acclaim as the doubled surnamed Elton John. Similarly, Gordon Sumner, whilst still probably using that name on his passport, will always be known as Sting.

Most relevantly, in these times, Cassius Clay Jr changed his name, a name that was already gaining notoriety in his chosen profession, to Muhammad Ali. As well as his religious beliefs, Islam, Ali had, before publicly changing his name, dropped Clay and referred to himself as Cassius X in the same manner Malcolm X had. Malcolm X, whose given surname had been Little, replaced his surname with an X because his given name was a slave name he said.

The question is: what’s in a name? I had a girlfriend who insisted that if we ever got married she would keep her name. She was very proud of her family name and could trace its history back several centuries through its various European phases. People take a lot of pride in their name. One of my sisters has kept her name for professional purposes even though she is married.

Another name: William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was a leading light in the abolishment of slavery throughout the majority of the British Empire. The act was passed in 1833, some thirty-two years before it would happen in the USA. Simple maths calculates that it was less than two hundred years ago or three generations.

Most British families can trace or have their family traced back more than three generations. It is all in the name and a matter of record. They can even find out the origin of their name and perhaps what their family was doing in the fifteenth century. For a lot of Africans, it is the same. They can trace their roots through their name as long as their family were not all displaced during the slave trade.

For many of West Indian descent and a western name, tracing one’s roots is an entirely different proposition. My surname - Betton - is thought to be Scottish in origin. I have no Scottish relatives that I know of and the name itself is quite rare on these shores. My grandfather on my father’s side surname was Blake. My mother’s maiden name was Coppin but her father’s name was Walker. No African names there then. I could not even tell you what a West Indian name would be. The names I have listed are all European in origin and probably handed down from former slave masters.

So why give a slave your name? You might ask. It is the easiest way to show ownership and to identify them. Also, it was easier - some would argue - to pronounce the European names. So why wouldn’t they just revert to their African names when they were freed? A few reasons. Some were generational slaves so they knew no other family name other than the given one and bureaucracy.

It was easier to register oneself with a full name to get work - ha! - and permits in the US anyway. Here in the UK, the abolishment of slavery was a boon for the slave owners, who were compensated handsomely for their loss of labour and the ‘freed’ slave were then required to work forty-five hours a week, unpaid, for their former masters. For the former slave owners, it was the equivalent of winning big on the lottery having never bought a ticket.

Not only did they prosper from their loss of enslaved labour, but their ancestors also continue to prosper to this day. What happened to the freed slaves? Most died out. There were no jobs and nobody wanted to pay them, not after not having to pay them for the previous two hundred years. This is something that is spoken about in the UK.

For black people over here, all our knowledge and images of slavery are from an American perspective. Few realise that slavery was not only common in the British Isles but throughout the empire. As ever, history is written by the victors and the Empire won.

Now in 2020, like a revelation in a telenovela, the truth is coming to light. Information is everywhere and only the willfully ignorant choose to ignore the dark past of these shores. Though it is unlikely that we - black people - will be rushing en masse to change our surnames to an X, seeing a change in the world and how it views us is a good start.