{"id":1491,"date":"2022-12-04T20:17:25","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T20:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2022-12-07T17:33:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T17:33:33","slug":"is-winston-an-african-american-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-an-african-american-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Winston An African American Name? (Explained)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This article looks at whether Winston is a typically African American first name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I used census records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to see it was historically popular in black communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, the more recent censuses don\u2019t publish full names like that for privacy reasons. So, I had to look for alternative sources to get the current picture in recent years.<\/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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#Winston_In_The_19th_And_Early_20th_Century\" title=\"Winston In The 19th And Early 20th Century\">Winston In The 19th And Early 20th Century<\/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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#1870\" title=\"1870\">1870<\/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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#1900\" title=\"1900\">1900<\/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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#1940\" title=\"1940\">1940<\/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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#Winston_In_The_1960s_and_Early_1970s\" title=\"Winston In The 1960s and Early 1970s\">Winston 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-winston-an-african-american-name\/#Is_Winston_A_Typically_African_American_First_Name_Currently\" title=\"Is Winston A Typically African American First Name Currently?\">Is Winston A Typically 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-7\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-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-8\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-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-9\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-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-10\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-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=\"Winston_In_The_19th_And_Early_20th_Century\"><\/span>Winston 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 Winston was a common black 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<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1870\"><\/span>1870<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1870 federal census was taken after the emancipation of slaves. This was the first census that counted all African Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were 1,114 people named Winston in the 1870 census.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The census takers marked residents as either white, black, or mixed (\u201cmulatto\u201d in those times).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I\u2019m researching African Americans in the 1870 census, I always include the latter 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 47% to 53%. So, about half of the population named Winston were African American in 1870.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1900\"><\/span>1900<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The mixed category was dropped in the 1900 census. By then, the total number of Winstons had nearly doubled to 2,048.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The black proportion was under half at 43%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1940\"><\/span>1940<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>By 1940, the total number was over ten thousand (10,101 to be exact). But the black proportion had dropped significantly to just fifteen percent.<\/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<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>My conclusion is that Winston was a relatively common first name amongst African Americans in the late 19th century. But it started dropping in popularity among black communities 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=\"Winston_In_The_1960s_and_Early_1970s\"><\/span>Winston In The 1960s and Early 1970s<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\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 207 people named Winston who applied for a mortgage. This was the ethnic breakdown:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>White: 45%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Black: 32%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Asian &amp; Pacific Islands: 17%<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hispanic: 6%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, the black proportion was about a third of the total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I conclude that Winston was not a predominantly African American name in the 1960s and 1970s. However, it was still commonly found in black communities.<\/strong><\/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\/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<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Is_Winston_A_Typically_African_American_First_Name_Currently\"><\/span>Is Winston A Typically 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<ul>\n<li>Georgia<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Louisiana<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mississippi<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I used different time frames between 2003 and 2016. The table below is the summary of my review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The column headed \u201cWinston\u201d was the total number of students 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;Winston&#8221;<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Black<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Georgia<\/td><td>21<\/td><td>26<\/td><td>31%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Louisiana<\/td><td>14<\/td><td>15<\/td><td>60%<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Mississippi<\/td><td>6<\/td><td>7<\/td><td>29%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The name was exclusively male. One student in Georgia was Asian and one was Hispanic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, the name Winston was more likely to belong to African American students in Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, it was more likely to belong to white students in Georgia and Mississippi.<\/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\n<p>To balance this survey, I also looked at a state with a low black population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I searched the New Hampshire yearbooks from 2006 to 2016 for anyone named Winston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was only one student in the search results, and he wasn\u2019t African American. The kid was actually called Winston Churchill.<\/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<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\/11\/high-school-yearbook.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/high-school-yearbook.jpg 600w, https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/high-school-yearbook-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Of course, there are more than fourteen schools in Louisiana (there are 558 to be exact).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 Winston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also possible that a school has a yearbook online but has nobody by the name of Winston. 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=\"Other_Names\"><\/span>Other Names<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Winston reminds me of the name Trevor in that many people would immediately assume that they are white names. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out our look at <a href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-trevor-an-african-american-name\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1495\">whether Trevor is a typically African American first name.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also looked at other &#8220;on&#8221; names i.e. names ending in &#8220;on&#8221;. Check these out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-leon-an-african-american-name\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1511\">is Leon a typically African American first name?<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-devon-an-african-american-name\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1507\">is Devon an African American name?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article looks at whether Winston is a typically African American first name. I used census records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to see it was historically popular in black communities. Of course, the more recent censuses don\u2019t publish full names like that for privacy reasons. So, I had to look for &#8230; <a title=\"Is Winston An African American Name? (Explained)\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/is-winston-an-african-american-name\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Is Winston 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\/1491"}],"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=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exploreblackheritage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}