Shaniqua

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Proper noun

Shaniqua

1. A female given name originating as a coinage, of African-American usage.
   • 2008 May 1, Ta-Nehisi Coates, quoting Bill Cosby, “‘This Is How We Lost to the White Man’”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     Those people are not Africans. They don’t know a damned thing about Africa— with names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed, and all that crap, and all of them are in jail.

Noun

Shaniqua (plural Shaniquas)

1. (slang, often derogatory) An African-American woman.
   • 2007, Isis I., Shaded Canvas, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 72:

     Maybe he should have started a while ago and upstaged actors for their menacing portrayal of the Shaniquas and the Sha-nay-nays on television.

   • 2011, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches from a Black Journalista, UPNE, →ISBN, page 24:

     So vexed was Cosby at this kind of black significance that he went out and spoke against it in town-hall meetings across the country, meetings in which the Shaniquas and Shaliguas actually showed up to hear what he had to say.

See also

• Ebony
• Tyrone