Though it was written four decades ago, most of us remember Alex Haley’s novel Roots. That book and the TV miniseries produced from it was read and seen by millions and millions of people on every continent of the world. It was a moving presentation of a two-century epic of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him. You may recall that Kunta Kinte was the great-great-great-great-great- grandfather of Alex Haley, the author.

One of the most significant episodes captured in the television drama was recorded in the first chapter of the book. The custom concerning the birth, and especially the signal event of naming a child on the eighth day, was recorded. That ancient naming ceremony of the African people involved the mother and the father taking the child out into the center of…