See this excerpt from my other website www.cocojams.com

African American Names-Sound Preferences :


"Sound Preferences For African American Female Names

It's traditional for Black folks in the United States to use prefixes {beginning sound} and suffixes {ending sound} to create an infinite number of "unique" personal names for females. But I wonder if anyone else has noticed that we {African Americans} seem to like some sounds more than others. IMHO, if there was a contest for the best loved prefix for Black females, there's be a BIG battle between "La {pronounced "Lah" and "Sha" {pronounced "shah". It'd be close, but I think in the end, "La" would win.

Think of all the "La" names you've heard over time: When I was growing up in the 1950s there was "Laverne", "Latitia", " Larissa", "Latrice", " Larice", "Laveda", and more. You may still hear these names, but more often you'll hear "La Toya", , "Lashawn", "Lashonda", "Lavona", "Lavonda" etc. Special mention should also be given to the Arabic female name "Latifah", sometimes written as "Latifa". All of the names of that second list were probably given to African American girls as personal names prior to the emergence of hip-hop in the 1970s. But it sure seems as if those second list examples of "La" names are more widely given now than the those on the first list.

...If you examine these names, you'll notice that a lot of them end with the "ah" sound. Older African American female names ending in in the 'ah' sound are "Ola", "Lena", "Sandra", and "Christina". "The name "Ola" was usually given as a double name, most often "Ola Mae". "Lah" also shows up as a suffix with an "ah" ending sound in the female names "Ella", "Edella", "'Priscella", "Samuella", and "Leila"....

African Americans have also persistently used 'isha' suffixes for female names. Contemporary examples of these names are "Tanisha" and "Shalisha". To add to a contemporary name's uniqueness, the suffix 'ia" can be further added onto female names ending in 'isha' ending to produce a name like "Shalishia". This name is either pronounced 'shah-LEE-shah' or 'shah-LEE-she-ah'.

...The 'African' name "Tamika" deserves special recognition. "Tamika" has been rather widely used as an 'African' name since the 1970s. However, the name actually comes from the Japanese female name "Tamiko" meaning 'girl child'. Its variant 'Tamika" gained popularity among African Americans due to a 1960s movie called "The Girl Named Tamiko", a movie that came out at a time when a considerable number of Afrocentric Black folks were seeking to ditch their European names and use 'African' names.

Since African Americans had considerably more information about the Arabic language than about traditional African languages [including Kiswahili}, many African names that were selected were actually Arabic names. In the 1970s to date an African American need not be Muslim to have an Arabic name. The most Christian of Christians can and have given their children Arabic names. BTW, Islam has been an 'African' religion in sub-Saharan West Africa since the 11th century B.C. Many North Africans and East Africans were converted to Islam before this time. Needless to say, some West Africans who were enslaved in the Americas and the Caribbean were Muslims and spoke Arabic. Variants of "Tamika" include "Tameka", Tamenika", Tamaka" and "Tamieka".....

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