Slave name

Key takeaways

Slave name belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Slave name to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Slave name from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A slave name is the personal name given by others to an enslaved person, or a name inherited from enslaved ancestors.

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, slaves were given a single name by their owner. A slave who was freed might keep their slave name and adopt the former owner's name as a praenomen and nomen. As an example, one historian says that "a man named Publius Larcius freed a male slave named Nicia, who was then called Publius Larcius Nicia." Historian Harold Whetstone Johnston writes of instances in which a slave's former owner chose to ignore custom and simply chose a name for the freedman.

Middle East

By Islamic law, non-Muslim foreigners (kafir) were by definition legitimate targets for enslavement, since the Muslim world of dar al-Islam was by definition at war with the non-Muslim world of dar al-harb ("House of War"), and non-Muslim war captives were legitimate to enslave. After capture, non-Muslim slaves were normally converted to Islam and given a new (Islamic) name. In the Ottoman Imperial Harem during the era of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, for example, the new cariye slave girls and concubines (sex slaves) were upon arrival customarily converted to Islam and given a new name, typically a Persian or Turkish name signifying the name of a flower or a bird, such as for example Nilüfer ('water lily'). Since a person in Ottoman society was normally referred to by the name of their father after their personal name, female slaves, whose fathers were unknown and not Muslims, were given a paternal name associated with God, normally Abdallah: according to preserved records, 97 percent of female palace slaves at the Ottoman Imperial Harem were named bint ('daughter of') Abdallah. Example of this were Gülbahar Hatun (mother of Selim I). The discovery of inscriptions (vakfiye) and others documents, where she was called Ayşe Gülbahar bint Abdüllah, proves that she had Christian slave origins, since this is the traditional slave name by which slaves who converted to Islam were indicated.

United States

After they became free, African-American former slaves were free to choose their own names. Many chose names like "Freeman" to denote their new status, while others picked names of famous people or people they admired, such as US Presidents like George Washington. Other commonly chosen names were "Johnson", "Brown" and "Williams", which had been popular before emancipation. There is a common misconception in the United States that African Americans derive their last names from the owners of their enslaved ancestors. 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." Echoing this, Malcolm X said:

"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." As a result, some organizations, including Muhammad's Nation of Islam and the black nationalist US Organization encourage African Americans to abandon their slave names. Some ex-slaves did choose to take the name of their former owner, but generally that was not the case. Some African-Americans would later change their name after a religious conversion (Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay, 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) or involvement with the black nationalist movement, in this latter case usually adopting names of African origin (e.g., Amiri Baraka and Assata Shakur).

Other references Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor stated in 2017 that she had changed her legal name to Magda Davitt, saying in an interview that she wished to be "free of the patriarchal slave names". On her conversion to Islam in 2018, she adopted the Muslim name Shuhada' Sadaqat.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Slave name

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Slave name claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Slave name before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Slave name ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Slave name

In research: Slave name appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Slave name in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Slave name is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human names, Naming controversies, Slavery, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Slave name outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Slave name in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Slave name means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Slave name out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Slave name in simple terms?

A slave name is the personal name given by others to an enslaved person, or a name inherited from enslaved ancestors. Ancient Rome In ancient Rome, slaves were given a single name by their owner.

Why does Slave name matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Slave name?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Slave name.