Surname Selection following Emancipation in the United States

Brayden Rothe, University of Minnesota

Historical demographers have long been unable to conduct large-scale inquiry into the naming patterns of the enslaved in the United States. This has largely been due to the lack of full count datasets on the enslaved population, which now exist. With the existence of the IPUMS full count dataset on the 1860 census of the enslaved population, this essay investigates the prevalence of formerly enslaved heads of households taking the surnames of their former enslavers. The literature notes that many slaves in the American South had surnames prior to emancipation, without legal recognition of any name. In the first universally enumerated population schedule in 1870, we can see the surnames that they chose for themselves. Through analysis at the county level, prevalence rates are constructed to determine the rates of freedmen taking their former owners names, selecting other names, or choosing to adopt descriptive titles as their surnames. This essay provides insights into the emerging social and cultural choices of the black population during the first half of Reconstruction.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 114. The Demographic Legacies of Slavery