{"id":1480,"date":"2022-12-03T22:24:54","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T22:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2022-12-03T22:57:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T22:57:47","slug":"is-otis-an-african-american-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Otis An African American Name? (Explained)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Your opinion on whether Otis is an African American first name is probably based on the people you know or have heard of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t know about you, but the glorious voice of Otis Redding is what comes to my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I wanted to take a more data-based approach to figure this out. That\u2019s a challenge because the Social Security Administration doesn\u2019t include ethnicity when it publishes statistics on first names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I used some alternative sources to look at numbers in current times and historically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_65 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 eztoc-toggle-hide-by-default' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#Is_Otis_An_African_American_First_Name_Currently\" title=\"Is Otis An African American First Name Currently?\">Is Otis An African American First Name Currently?<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#What_about_New_Hampshire\" title=\"What about New Hampshire?\">What about New Hampshire?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#Why_were_there_so_few_schools_in_this_survey\" title=\"Why were there so few schools in this survey?\">Why were there so few schools in this survey?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#The_challenge_of_using_high_school_photos\" title=\"The challenge of using high school photos\">The challenge of using high school photos<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#Otis_Was_Almost_50_50_In_The_1960s_and_Early_1970s\" title=\"Otis Was Almost 50:50 In The 1960s and Early 1970s\">Otis Was Almost 50:50 In The 1960s and Early 1970s<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#Was_Otis_A_Black_Name_In_The_19th_And_Early_20th_Century\" title=\"Was Otis A Black Name In The 19th And Early 20th Century?\">Was Otis A Black Name In The 19th And Early 20th Century?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/#Other_Names\" title=\"Other Names\">Other Names<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Is_Otis_An_African_American_First_Name_Currently\"><\/span>Is Otis An African American First Name Currently?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Several online archives have collected thousands of high school yearbooks from the early 1900s up to 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I used Ancestry.com for my research. First, I ran name searches on three southern states with a significant black population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To keep this to recent numbers, I ran searches on the ten years from 2006 to 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The table below is the summary of my review. The column headed \u201cOtis\u201d was the total number of kids with the name that I found across the schools with uploaded yearbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table alignfull is-style-stripes\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>State<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Schools<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>&#8220;Otis&#8221;<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Black %<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Georgia<\/td><td>17<\/td><td>18<\/td><td>83%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Louisiana<\/td><td>5<\/td><td>5<\/td><td>80%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Mississippi<\/td><td>5<\/td><td>5<\/td><td>100%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Every student was male.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on these yearbooks, Jerome isn\u2019t an exclusively African American name in recent years. However, the black percentage is very high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My conclusion is that Otis is a typically African American male name in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_about_New_Hampshire\"><\/span>What about New Hampshire?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/new-hampshire-stamp.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/new-hampshire-stamp.jpg 600w, https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/new-hampshire-stamp-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>To balance this survey, I also looked at a state with a low black population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent one year in Middle School in New Hampshire. There was one other black kid in the 8<sup>th<\/sup> grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I searched the New Hampshire yearbooks from 2006 to 2016 for anyone named Otis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was one white student named Otis in the yearbooks in that decade. There were no black students with the name in the search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_were_there_so_few_schools_in_this_survey\"><\/span>Why were there so few schools in this survey?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, there are more than twelve schools in Louisiana (there are 558 to be exact). But many schools don\u2019t have yearbooks available online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second column in the table shows the number of schools that came up in the results when I searched for the name Otis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also possible that a school has a yearbook online but has nobody by the name of Otis. That means the school doesn\u2019t get counted in this survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_challenge_of_using_high_school_photos\"><\/span>The challenge of using high school photos<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019ve looked at historic census records in the U.S., you\u2019ll know that ethnicity is one of the questions that people are asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means that the census archives can be searched by ethnicity as well as specific names. However, I could only search the high school yearbooks by student names and school locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, how did I identify African Americans from people of other heritage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, the recent high school yearbooks have photographs of the students. I did it by eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not going to be right with every pick. So, treat these numbers as an estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Otis_Was_Almost_50_50_In_The_1960s_and_Early_1970s\"><\/span>Otis Was Almost 50:50 In The 1960s and Early 1970s<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/black-research-project.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/black-research-project.jpg 600w, https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/black-research-project-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/dataverse.harvard.edu\/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910\/DVN\/TYJKEZ&amp;version=1.3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research study<\/a> used mortgage applications from 2007 to identify the breakdown of first names by ethnicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can guess that most of the applicants were aged from thirty to fifty. So, the numbers represent people born in the 1960s and early 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were 131 people named Otis who applied for a mortgage. The ethnic breakdown was very interesting (I rounded the numbers):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>White: 51%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Black: 47%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hispanic: 1%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Asian &amp; Pacific Island: 1%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s close to breaking 50:50 between white and black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, the name was less likely to be given to a black child from those times than in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I conclude that Otis was both a white and black name in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Was_Otis_A_Black_Name_In_The_19th_And_Early_20th_Century\"><\/span>Was Otis A Black Name In The 19<sup>th<\/sup> And Early 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To review whether Otis was a popular first name in the 19<sup>th<\/sup> and early 20<sup>th<\/sup> centuries, I looked at several federal censuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1870 federal census was the first census taken after the emancipation of slaves. This was the first census that counted all African Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were 6,323 people in the 1870 census named Otis. The census takers marked 98 as black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They also marked 31 as mixed (the term was \u201cmulatto\u201d then).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I\u2019m researching African Americans in the 1870 census, I always include the two categories. The census takers were not always correct in how they categorized non-white residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless, we can say that the black percentage was somewhere from 1.6% to 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mixed category was dropped in the 1900 census. By now, the black percentage had grown to 11%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1930 census brought in extra categories for non-white residents that seemingly confused the census takers.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/1940-census.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/1940-census.jpg 600w, https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/1940-census-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>processing the 1940 census&#8230;<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>So, I\u2019ll skip that census and jump to the 1940 version where there was one black category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 1940, the black percentage had more than doubled to 25%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My conclusion is that Otis was not a common black name in the late 19th century but grew in popularity in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Other_Names\"><\/span>Other Names<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve also looked at another four-letter name starting with &#8220;O&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out our article on <a href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-omar-an-african-american-name\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1487\">whether Omar is a typically African American first name<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your opinion on whether Otis is an African American first name is probably based on the people you know or have heard of. I don\u2019t know about you, but the glorious voice of Otis Redding is what comes to my mind. But I wanted to take a more data-based approach to figure this out. That\u2019s &#8230; <a title=\"Is Otis An African American Name? (Explained)\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-otis-an-african-american-name\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Is Otis An African American Name? (Explained)\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}