slave name

plural slave names

1. A name or surname given to a person held in slavery, or passed down to their descendants.

   His point is to let white people know you don't accept your slave name.

   2019, Patricia San José Rico, Creating Memory and Cultural Identity in African American Trauma Fiction, page 164

   2 more examples

   They might not know which name to call—my slave name, Marie Laveau, or the unknown African name that should've been mine.

   1995, Jewell P. Rhodes, Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau, page 164

   Shipp is my slave name. It's the name of the people who owned my family.

   2021, Marcellas Reynolds, Supreme Actresses: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Hollywood, page 171

2. broadlyderogatoryAny name imposed on one by others rather than chosen by them for themselves (but generally excluding names bestowed by one's parents).

   Call me Namron. You see Norman is my slave name.

   2012, Susan W. Gray, Marilyn R. Zide, Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series: Psychopathology, page 47

   2 more examples

   'Woman' is my slave name; feminism will give me freedom to seek some other identity altogether.

   1989, Ann Snitow, “Pages from a Gender Diary”, in Dissent, page 205

   Muffy was my slave name. It's what all those Columbia math majors called me.

   1993, George Alec Effinger, Michael D. Resnick, Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson, page 23