Were you born with the name Diallo Kenyatta or did you change your name to that? And what are your thoughts or advice for black folk that wish to ditch their European name for an African name?

I was born with that name, but that’s not my whole name, I just don’t include the non-African aspect of my name; I carry the name of one of the Founding fathers.  I’ll send you a button if you guess which one.

If I was to give myself a name it would be like: Shaka Lumumba Nkruma!  Or some dope shit like that.  My dad gave me name Diallo after some African scholar who was prominent in the 60s and 70s.  Kenyatta was after that sellout Jomo.

The advice I’d give to any African seeking to dump their European name for an African name, legally or otherwise is to DO THAT SHIT! 

Secondly, make sure it’s an African name, not an Arabic name; that’s more common than you think.  The one exception to that is if you are naming your youth or yourself after an African Ancestor who carried their non-African name like Franz Fanon, or Patrice Lumumba, or Fred Hampton, or Harriet Tubman, or Fannie Lou Hamer, John Henrik Clarke; some Africans with Western names were so powerful that they now own those names, they are now fully African.  If I meet a White dude named Fred I’m like, why is he named after a Great Black Revolutionary.  So that’s the exception. 

Finally, make sure people call you by your chosen name (you mother is of course exempt, she can call you what ever the hell she wants) but every one else have to respect your African Name.  New Negros will try to mock and shame you, or not accpet your name unless its on White documents, so you will encounter resistance but keep fighting and claim your African name.