Karen is right. The original question is strange, "would they be FORCED to change their name?" What would the reason for "forcing" a slave to change his/her name? And what an owner called his slaves might be totally different than what slaves called each other. Slave families DID have surnames, though they are very hard and rare to find in the records. It strikes me that the Deep South slaves were more prone to take a former owners name than their Virginia counterparts. But the way to see this in action is to examine the ships passengers lists for freed slaves sent to Liberia by the American Colonization Society in the 1820-1850s. This was published in their magazine *The African Repository* which one can find at LVA or LOC. 

If anyone is interested in this topic, you might want to read my article "The Kelley Brothers and The American Colonization Society: From Northumberland to Liberia." Here is a link to it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k9i939b575qddhm/kelley%20brothers%20article.pdf

Craig


On Jul 8, 2014, at 3:26 PM, KAREN DALE wrote:

> It seems to me it would depend entirely on the whim of the new owner.  There were no official registrations for slaves, no rules governing what they were called or who they were. If a slave owner already had a Judy, makes perfect sense he' change the name of his "new" slave to whatever he wanted to.   
> 
>> Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2014 12:02:06 -0400
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] VA-ROOTS Digest - 3 Jul 2014 to 7 Jul 2014 (#2014-4)
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> 
>> That's an interesting question.  It might depend on whether a slave had been obtained according to the legal system at the time or captured/abducted.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kelli Yates <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: VA-ROOTS <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tue, Jul 8, 2014 11:39 am
>> Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] VA-ROOTS Digest - 3 Jul 2014 to 7 Jul 2014 (#2014-4)
>> 
>> 
>> I want to thank everyone for there assistance in my search.  I also have
>> another unusual question.  Does anyone know if a slave was sold south would
>> they be forced to change their first name.
>> On Jul 8, 2014 12:00 AM, "VA-ROOTS automatic digest system" <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:

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