I would have to go with quintessentially African-American names because they are truly from the U.S. and do not originate from any other country. Many names that use apostrophes, like D'Andre or D'Angelo, and others like
Deshawn or
Daquan, or like Olympic runner Sha'carri Richardson, basketball player
Lebron James, all names that sometimes recombine elements of existing names with new flair and flourishes or use invented prefixes and suffixes (if those are the right terms) to create new unique names that are truly American.
I guess I'd also have to add Native American given names, but I don't know many authentic Native American given names. Many tribal names, like
Cheyenne, are not the names that those groups call themselves, they're more like umbrella terms.
For example,
The
Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the Tsétsėhéstȧhese (also spelled Tsitsistas, [t͡sɪt͡shɪstʰɑs][4]).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CheyenneThis message was edited 6/7/2025, 8:39 PM