Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What's The 'Blackest' Name in All the Land?


No, it's not Bunifah Latifah Sharifah Halifah Jackson or any of the names in the HILARIOUS video above. It's George Washington.
As the country marked the 279th birthday yesterday of the first President, black New Yorkers who share his name marveled at how common it is among African-Americans. "I know a lot of Washingtons," said George Washington, 53, a retired welder from the Bronx. "I don't know no white people named Washington." "My dad was George Washington, so I was also George Washington," said a 75-year-old retiree from Jamaica, Queens, by that name. "On [President] George Washington's birthday, people used to call me up and wish me a happy birthday." Of the 163,036 people counted by the 2000 Census with the last name of Washington, 90% were African-American. The second "blackest" name, Census figures show, is Jefferson, a surname shared with another slave-owning American president. Three-quarters of Jeffersons are black. Only 14% of those with the last name of Lincoln were African-American. "It's an assumption that the surname is tied to George," Tony Burroughs, an expert in African-American genealogy, told the Associated Press. He said 82% to 94% of all Washingtons listed in the 1880 to 1930 censuses were black. Nearly 400 of Washingtons in the city and surrounding suburbs have the first name of George. Some African-American Washingtons are puzzled as to how they came to be named for a white slaveowner. "I wonder what my mother must have been thinking," said the retired welder, whose mom died when he was 9. "If I had been born nowadays, I don't think she would have named one of her kids 'George.'" Washington, a father of one, said he didn't follow family practice. "My name's all right," he said. "But I didn't name my son George Washington and I certainly wouldn't name nobody that now."
Aren't you glad it wasn't one of dem names?
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