Not having grown up with African Americans (I'm in northern Canada), I'm curious as to the significance of the unique, interesting names of many African American girls and women. For example, on American Idol, there is Tinnik, Mandisa, and of course Fantasia from 2 years ago. Is this some sort of cultural tradition? I've always been curious about this so I'd be grateful if anyone could enlighten me!

Originally the names are suppose to have some meaning in one of the original African dialects. But honestly I think many today ( some I know of for sure) are just made up names the parents think are neat sounding.
The more original the better.

Thanks Fr Chuck. I had wondered if there was some African connection to the names.

Note, my wife told me this, she is African American.

That's very interesting I've often wondered the same thing.

Here is a web site that gives you a name and their meaning

http://www.swagga.com/fname.htm

Thanks for the link, it's very interesting!

Actually Im African American , many of the reasons many AA's have rather unique names is because some of them tend to be a combination of other significant names. There is a boy I know with the name "Diontay". His mother named him after "Diane" her grandmother. "Ontavious" her uncle and "Taylor" her cousin. All of these people played a significant role in his mothers life and so that's why the name is rather unlike anyone else's.

There are so many more like:

Shadequa
Kaylashante
Moniqua
Rontavious
Shameeka

These are examples of names that are combinations of other names if you look at it closely.
Believe me I asked my mom the same question you're asking(she chose a rather simple german name for me) and I didn't understand why certain names were so made up until a friend of mine explained it to me.

Most likely "Mandisa" is a combination of names that were significant to her parents.

However I have no explanation for African Americans who name kids after achohlic beverages and fancy cars:(

Hope it helps!

Thanks lena! That was a really great, complete explanation, the best one yet! It sort of reminds me of my Norweigan friends, who told me that their surnames are combinations of other names, with a different surname used in each generation, which is why it is so hard for them to do any genealogy.