For obvious reasons, great emphasis is placed on surnames in genealogy. Without a surname list your research will not take you very far. But at a recent lecture, the presenter’s advice to “look at the given names” stuck in my mind. It didn’t take long for me to learn that this practice will take you further than you may think. Yes, it applies to obvious misspellings. But where it really began to shine for me was when I realized that many given names of slaves — especially females — are actually nicknames.
Also, among the artifacts displayed in the Black History Month exhibit at the Clayton Library for Genealogical Research included a framed sheet of slave nicknames. As I scanned the paragraph-style presentation, I came upon the name, “Sukie” which is a variable of the spelling of my great-grandmother’s given name. After many unsuccessful attempts to find her in any Census record, I set her aside and continued my research.
Female Nickname List
The presentation of the nicknames was in paragraph form with each nickname in bold followed by the associated given names. This was an attractive presentation. But I needed the information in list form. So I expanded on the exhibit copy and a few lists I found online and came up with these lists for starters. I also separated the lists into male and female. I hope they will be of benefit to you. The link to the female list is to the left. The link to the male list is at the end of this post.
Page 4 of “The Barge Papers” Courtesy of the Cobb County Arts Alliance
When I got home, I went through some material I had obtained earlier from a gentle lady at the Cobb County Arts Alliance, I came upon a handwritten page from “the Barge papers.” On that page were variations of the ancestor I had been calling, “Seuk”: “. . . Suckey, Sukie, Sook, Suck . . .” No one knew how to spell it. Then just as I surmised I should include these variations in my search, I thought to take another look at the slave nickname list from the exhibit, it hit me. Her name was Susan.
Then, I went through my Legacy Family Tree records and there she was — right under my nose as I had suspected. Susan JORDAN — enumerated in the 1880 Census with her parents and two siblings. A quick analysis indicated she was 10 years younger than Thack. Now, I can focus on how close in proximity their families lived. I’ve already determined that the entry of one of her relatives is directly above Thacker’s in the 1867 Return of Qualified Voters and Reconstruction Oath Book for Cobb County, GA. This tells me they could have gone to the court house together. And they, more than likely, were neighbors. So this weekend at the library, I’ll take a closer look at the Jordan family. (As she rubs her palms together . . .) Can’t wait!
Male Nickname List
Daughter of Slave Ancestry 
Donna;
Congratulation for creating wonderful blog.
In fact, we are following each others blog; but unfortunately due to lack of time and many other constrains despite of my all your sincere intentions I haven’t visited your blog too much, so, today, I specifically visited to your blog to say hello to you, I wish more often we visit each other’s blog and through the comment section of our respective blogs we should start to converse with each other more often.
Wishing you all the best……………
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Loved your story and info, happy you found Susan! Aldo like the photo name picture, how is that made like that with the names?
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Good morning, Jeanne. I just noticed our names are spelled the same way. It’s my middle name though. And despite “Jean” on my birth certificate, my mother was adamant that “Jeanne” is the correct spelling.
Anyway, I’m glad you found my post interesting. I used Tagul to create my word cloud. It’s fairly simple to use. There are others that I want to explore; but this one was pretty simple to master and achieve the effect I was going for.
At first, I didn’t know how people were doing it. You should see the first one I tried to do a few months ago from scratch in PhotoShop. It was a hot mess! This one is much better. Like I said, Tagul is pretty easy to use. I don’t know how you are with mastering software apps; so let me know if you have questions about using it. I can’t wait to see your cloud.
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I love your blog! This post was fantastic, detailed and well written. I’ve been stuck searching for nicknames. I never knew Mollie was a nickname for Mary. You nickname list is good.
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Thanks, Bernita. I’m glad you like my blog and have found use for the nickname list. This list was based on the display from the library. But there are more names to be added. I’ll get it updated soon.
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