In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston artistically chooses distinctive forenames and nicknames for her characters, reflecting the uniqueness and diversity of African American culture. Names like Tea Cake, Bootsie, Alphabet, or Sop-de-Bottom are informal name choices that also highlight the difference between the proper white naming conventions and the relaxed naming choices of African Americans in the South.

While scholars have addressed the importance of first names in Hurston’s novel, writers have given less focus to Hurston’s choice of characters’ surnames. The majority of surnames in the novel are traditional European surnames, many of which originate from the English, French, and German languages. As Europeans colonized America and stripped  Black Africans of their culture and name identity, Hurston indirectly connects the history of racism by using European-originated surnames. It is my argument that Janie’s surname, as well as those of her husbands, are significant in the development of Janie’s identity as an African American and as a black woman in a society that discriminates against race and gender. By changing her surname from Crawford to Killicks to Starks to Woods, Janie marks her experiences with love and men, eventually finding her natural self.