Looking at slave names listed in the 1817 Register for St Mary's Jamaica at the National Archives, Kew, London, I noticed that the names were listed as nameA nameB nameC and looked very much as if each person had two names. Another plantation listed names as Original name and Baptismal name, and I wondered if something like that was going on. Examples of the names were Briton Charles Nicholas Pallmer aged 28 Quamin Richard Davis 31 Alexander Alexander Logan 16 Osonoko James Dawson 31 Dawson John Dawson 19 Beckford James Smith Lawes 36 Frederick William Hamilton 24 As well as wanting confirmation that my feeling that each had two names is correct, I was puzzled by some of the names used. The owner of the plantation, to Dec 1795 when he died, was Francis Dennis. His wife was Mary Burke (or Bourke), and his heirs were his young daughters, aged 13 and 11 when he died. One married James Hewitt Massy-Dawson, the other married Hugh Ingoldsby Massy in 1801, and then (he having died in 1805) Charles Nicholas Pallmer (who was born in 1772, according to http://www.hmc.gov.uk/NRA/searches/PIdocs.asp?P=44819). A lot of the names in the previous paragraph appear in the slave names, Charles Nicholas Pallmer being very obvious. But the heiress's husband was not a member of the owner's family when Briton was born, and was only 17 or so at the time. (References to him on the web deal with his adult life.) Briton's mother is named (Jane Simmons), so it seems likely that he was born on the plantation (I did not have time to read all the names). Is it likely that there was a great renaming sweep across the plantation (or even island(s)?) in the early 19C - after 1805, and possibly after 1812? (I cannot remember the date of the Pallmer marriage).