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HelpRe: African-American section
in reply to a message by Kitandkat
The names are not associated with Africa, and nobody on this site says they are. They are associated with African-Americans. If the correct term for African-Americans did not include the word "African", then the title of the name category would not include it, either.
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The term Black Americans could be used. Anyways, this message board wasn't to get something changed. I was just stating my opinion.
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I agree that it's confusing, how usage and origin are distinguished on this website. It's not obvious that that is what's up. Like if you go to the Browse Names page, and look at the list of "Usage," there's no "African-American" listed. But there's an African (languages) list. There's not even an "American" listed. The reason is because that list is really origins, like linguistic or etymological - not usages.
African-American is supposed to refer to usage, not language of origin. That's supposed to be true of all the other usages marked on the individual name pages too, but it's probably a little inconsistent. Like, Mila is not marked as a French usage - but it was the sixth most popular name in France in 2016, so it really should be. But just because a name is listed as one usage, doesn't mean that other usages are excluded (many names listed African-American have been used by both black and non-black Americans).
The usage category is called "African-American" just because that's currently the term that seems to be preferred. It could as well be Black American.
African-American is supposed to refer to usage, not language of origin. That's supposed to be true of all the other usages marked on the individual name pages too, but it's probably a little inconsistent. Like, Mila is not marked as a French usage - but it was the sixth most popular name in France in 2016, so it really should be. But just because a name is listed as one usage, doesn't mean that other usages are excluded (many names listed African-American have been used by both black and non-black Americans).
The usage category is called "African-American" just because that's currently the term that seems to be preferred. It could as well be Black American.
This message was edited 6/19/2018, 3:46 PM
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Thank you.
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