Editing Slave name (section)

==United States==
{{further|African-American names}}
After they became free, [[African-American]] former slaves were free to choose their own names.<ref name="Craven">{{Cite web |last=Craven |first=Julia |date=2022-02-24 |title=Many African American last names hold weight of Black history |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/many-african-american-last-names-hold-weight-black-history-rcna17267 |access-date=19 September 2023 |website=NBC News |language=en}}</ref> Many chose names like "Freeman" to denote their new status, while others picked names of famous people or people they admired, such as [[List of presidents of the United States|US Presidents]] like [[George Washington]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theroot.com/tracing-your-roots-were-slaves-surnames-like-brands-1796141007|title=Tracing Your Roots: Were Slaves' Surnames Like Brands?|website=The Root|date=16 June 2017 |access-date=19 September 2023}}</ref> Other commonly chosen names were "Johnson", "Brown" and "Williams", which had been popular before [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|emancipation]].

There is a common misconception in the [[United States]] that African Americans derive their last names from the owners of their [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved ancestors]].<ref name="Craven"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Economic Facts and Fallacies|author=Sowell, Thomas|page=163|year=2008|publisher=Basic Books}}</ref> For example, in his 1965 book, ''[[Message to the Blackman in America]]'', [[Elijah Muhammad]] wrote, "You must remember that slave-names will keep you a slave in the eyes of the civilized world today. You have seen, and recently, that Africa and Asia will not honor you or give you any respect as long as you are called by the white man's name."<ref>[http://www.seventhfam.com/temple/books/black_man/blk24.htm ''Message to the Blackman'']; [[Muhammad, Elijah]]; Chapter 24; seventhfam.com</ref>

Echoing this, [[Malcolm X]] said: 

{{quote|"The slave master who owned us put his last name on us to denote that we were his property. So when you see a negro today who's named Johnson, if you go back in his history you will find that his grandfather, or one of his forefathers, was owned by a white man who was named Johnson. My father didn't know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather, and his grandfather got it from his grandfather, who got it from the slave master. The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery."<ref>{{cite news |title=Hey, Black America, Let's All Ditch Our Slave Names |url=https://medium.com/bigger-picture/hey-black-america-lets-all-ditch-our-slave-names-2c899453b46 |access-date=June 2, 2022 |work=Medium}}</ref>|}}

As a result, some organizations, including Muhammad's [[Nation of Islam]] and the [[Black nationalism|black nationalist]] [[US Organization]] encourage African Americans to abandon their slave names.<ref>[http://www.us-organization.org/nguzosaba/NguzoSaba.html "NGUZO SABA (The Seven Principles)" From : US Organization website]</ref> In reality some ex-slaves did choose to take the name of their former owner, but generally that was not the case.<ref name="Craven"/>

Some African-Americans would later change their name after a religious conversion ([[Muhammad Ali]] changed his name from Cassius Clay, [[Malcolm X|el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X)]] from Malcolm Little, [[Kareem Abdul-Jabbar]] from Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr, and [[Louis Farrakhan]] changed his from Louis Eugene Walcott, for example)<ref>{{cite web|title=Louis Farrakhan Biography|url=http://www.biography.com/people/louis-farrakhan-9291850|work=Database|publisher=Biography.com|access-date=2011-10-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Muhammad Ali Biography|url=http://www.biography.com/people/muhammad-ali-9181165|work=Database|publisher=Biography.com|access-date=2011-10-20}}</ref>  or involvement with the [[black nationalist]] movement, in this latter case usually adopting names of African origin (e.g., [[Amiri Baraka]] and [[Assata Shakur]]).<ref>[[William L. Van Deburg|Deburg, William L. Van]], ''Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan'',  NYU Press (1997), p. 269, {{ISBN|0-8147-8789-4}}</ref>