Here's my post that started me thinking about this subject today:
[with the minor addition of Kofi Annan's full middle name}

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 02:09 PM

Somewhat off topic:

For those who may be interested, see this quote from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=2 about the name "Sambo":

"Sambo (2)
stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, Amer.Eng., probably a different word from sambo (1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, cf. Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son." Used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which actually is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's."

-snip-

I've read elsewhere about the African origins of the name "Sambo".
Btw, "Hausa" and "Foulah" are names of two ethnic groups in Nigeria. Other group names for the "Foulah" people are "Fulani, or Fellata, or Foulah, or Fulbe, or Fule, or Peul". From my reading, I'm also aware that a number of enslaved African people in the USA and elsewhere were given African & Arabic names by their parents or others in their community. Three examples of those names are the Yoruba {Nigeria} female names "Tene" {pronounced tah-NAY}, and "Ola" {pronounced OH-lah}-though there are also European sources for the name "Ola"- and the male nickname "Mookie" {probably from the Congolese male nickname "Moke {moh-KAY}, though in the USA "Mookie" is pronounced "MOO-key". But even after the late 1960s and early 1970s custom was established {or re-established} of giving African or Arabic names to African Americans, or folks selecting such a name for themselves, because of its negative connotations, the name "Sambo" is rarely [if ever] given to African American children.
However, the nickname Sam is widely found among African Americans, and the practice of using that nickname may have come from the African name and the Hebrew name "Samuel". As a matter of fact, there are a number of traditional African & Arabic personal names which sound like certain Hebrew names or European names or nicknames.

**

The name "Cuff" which is also used in the "Coal Black Rose" song and elsewhere is a corruption of the Akan {Ghana} male day name name "Kofi". "Kofi means "male born on Friday". Btw, the Ashanti {more correctly written "Asante" but pronounced with a "h" sound} are one group of Akan {Twi speaking} people. A number of Akan day names are found-usually in their variant forms-on slave records in the USA, the Caribbean, and South America. One contemporary public figure who ise named "Kofi" is Kofi Atta Annan, of Ghana, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. "Atta" is an Akan unisex name for the elder twin. "Anan" is an Akan unisex name which means "the fourth born child".


For those interested, here's a wikipedia page with information on Akan names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_name

And for those who don't like wikipedia, here's another link to a online resource on Akan names:
http://home.wxs.nl/~degenj/ghana1/gh-names.html