The Power of Ketanji Brown Jackson's African Name

[elleng]

It translates to “lovely one” but represents so much more.

Soon, she will likely be Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson. In a country where enslaved Africans were forced to change their names and having an African-sounding name can still hurt your chances of landing a job, that simple fact is a small but meaningful step forward for Black Americans.

The current nominee to the Supreme Court has an African first name—and it was with a smile that I read the story of how she got it.

Her parents, presumably wanting to show pride in their ancestry as the thriving American descendants of enslaved Africans, had asked her aunt, a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, to send them a list of suitable names. They chose Ketanji Onyika, meaning “lovely one.”

Soon, she will likely be Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson. In a country where African men and women were once forced to change their names by slave owners, and where having an African-sounding name can still hurt your chances of landing a job, that simple fact is a small but meaningful step forward for Black Americans.

Not too long ago, it was taken for granted that some immigrants to the United States should anglicize their names. Although the myth that most immigrants from Europe had their names changed while passing through Ellis Island has now been debunked, it is true that some migrants, many of them Jews confronted with antisemitism, did change their names after arrival. Similarly, immigrants from Asia have felt the need to adopt English names for the ease of monolingual Americans who could not properly pronounce names from countries such as China, Vietnam, or South Korea.'>>>

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/ketanji-brown-jackson-name-african.html?

[raging moderate]

1. My Danish great-grandparents were forced to change their names.

They were given anglicized versions by some officious guard who informed them pompously, "You are Americans now, and these are your American names!" So I well believe that many others were told the same thing, especially if they did not fit the fantasy "American" image.

Ketanji Anjika is a lovely name, and our newest Supreme Court justice is a lovely woman from a lovely family. Somewhere, my ancestors are ALL cheering and applauding.

Plus, SHE IS BRILLIANT! AND SO EDUCATED, AND SO EXPERIENCED, AND SO COMPETENT! WE ARE SO LUCKY TO HAVE HER!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Sometimes when I hear the stories of names being changed in Ellis Island

"They changed the spelling from Olsen to Olson" or something similarly trivial, or even the greater changes, I always wonder, why didn't the new immigrant just resume the original spelling or version of the name?

Full disclosure: All of my grandparents came from Ireland, so they not only already spoke English, but already had names that fit in this country. Additional disclosure: All of my parental generation married other Irish Americans, and when I was a little girl all the elderly aunts would look at me, click their tongues and say (do say this to yourself with your best Irish brogue) "Ahhh, she has the map of Ireland on her face." Well, I grew up in this wonderful country, and even if I only looked at others of European descent I saw a lot of variety. Better yet, I saw people from all over this wonderful planet. So the first time I went to Ireland I was flabbergasted. Every single person I saw looked EXACTLY like my brothers and sisters and cousins. I finally understood what the elderly aunts were seeing.

I really love living in this country, with the different origins of our people, with the different names people have, with the different ways of seeing the world.

[3Hotdogs]

3. The Ellis Island, name change myth. You got on the boat, your name was on the ship's manifest.

When the ship left European port, Ellis Island received a telegram that the ship sailed and will arrive ar N.Y. on a specific date. Immigration authorities would have staff that spoke the language of the country of origin to wait for the ship's arrival. This was the case at other major ports.

Once you left immigration, you were free to change your name to anything you wanted.

If you know when your ancestor landed at Ellis, you can check their name on the registry and it will be in the same spelling as it was when they landed.