One question I've had is why didn't parents who wanted to avoid originally European names take from actual African names, rather than minting new names. I understand being disconnected from one's ancestry, but still, this seems a different alternative.
Btw Tyrone is not uncommon for white Brits.
People do things for so many reasons, or for no reason. Trying to make Black people's choices of names fit some narrative is going to fail to capture the complexity and depth of their culture.
Put another way, if people are choosing not to use White names, why wouldn't they also choose not to the use traditional names of any culture. Maybe having a "respectable" name that has a long history as a name, is also something people were choosing to avoid.
Interestingly, in some European countries, you can't easily make up names. You have to prove they exist in your ancestral language, as well you can't make one up for the official language either.
As an immigrant to the US I've been perplexed by this too. In the UK it's not uncommon to meet people with distinctly Black names, but they're clearly of derived from African languages. I people living in the UK and Europe also get more exposure to African names because of geographic proximity to Africa, meaning African politicians, business leaders and so on are mentioned more frequently in current affairs programming than they are in the US.
Things may have changed since I lived in the UK, but I can't recall any analog to the neonymous phenomenon in the US.
Instead of what they did, which is draw from their own culture which is as old as America itself.
Moreover, you don't have to pick something randomly, you can look at names, read about their meanings and pick something that sounds nice to you. you don't do it in a vacuum. So, my question is why this alternative, vs, any other alternative at creating self identification?
PS never mind that in some countries you can't just make up names. You can use foreign names, but you have to prove they are viable names in the place you claim them to be used names. But that's beside the point.
And, of course, keep in mind, all names were somewhat "invented" and new at some point in time. My question is more about how/why did this method (of prefixes, among other unique qualities) predominate over other available methods?
Also, curiously, many Africans with their ancestral surnames will have a European forename along with an African middle name.
This naming convention has been a long tradition in Europe, making the names appear indigenous to that region, but in many cases these 'European' names actually originated in North Africa or the Middle East which had Christian populations before Europe did.