Latonya as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Latonya

What is the meaning of the name Latonya ?

The baby name Latonya is a girl name , 3 syllables long and is pronounced lə-TAHN-yə.

Latonya is African American, Latin in Origin.

Latonya is a modern American English formation, especially associated with African American naming. Its earliest recoverable form is the 20th-century compound La- + Tonya: La- functions here as an onomastic prefix, while Tonya is a short form of Antonia. Antonia is the feminine of Latin Antonius, a Roman family name generally treated as Etruscan in origin; its literal sense is not securely known.

The name fits a mid-20th-century U.S. pattern in which prefixes such as La-, De-, and Sha- were used in new given names. Evidence from the American Name Society journal Names and a University of Münster linguistics poster identifies La- as a female-name prefix in African American practice, especially visible after the civil-rights era. SSA data place Latonya’s main rise in the 1970s, with LaTonya, La Tonya, and Latonia as spelling variants.