The successful American DJ and producer the Black Madonna has changed her name to the Blessed Madonna, following a petition for her to change it on grounds of racial insensitivity and cultural appropriation.

The Blessed Madonna – real name Marea Stamper – announced the change in a post on Twitter. She said the original name was “a reflection of my family’s lifelong and profound Catholic devotion to a specific kind of European icon of the Virgin Mary which is dark in hue”.

She acknowledged that “I should have listened harder to other perspectives” on the name, and added: “My artist name has been a point of controversy, confusion, pain and frustration that distracts from things that are a thousand times more important than any single word in that name … we all have a responsibility to try and affect positive change in any way we can.”

A petition had been set up that argued that “black Madonna” icons had special significance for “black catholics in the US, Caribbean and Latin America”, and added: “Religious connotations aside though, it should be abundantly clear that in 2020, a white woman calling herself ‘black’ is highly problematic.”

Other musicians have changed their artist names in recent weeks, as a reckoning with racist terminology and imagery continues. Dixie Chicks changed their name to the Chicks, and Lady Antebellum to Lady A, because of connotations with the slavery-era southern US.

Other changes have been made to sports teams, food brands, and in the military – last week, the offensive name of a pet dog owned by the Dambusters second world war bomber squadron was removed from its grave by the Royal Air Force. In the US, it has been suggested that military bases named after Confederate generals, who fought to maintain slavery, should be renamed, though Donald Trump has said he would veto any such move.