Taraji is from the Swahili taraji ("hope, expectation"). Taraji P. Henson (born Taraji Penda Henson, 1970; her full birth name in Swahili means "hope of love") — American actress; Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); played Cookie Lyon on Fox's Empire (2015-2020), one of the most-watched Black-led network dramas of the 2010s — earning her Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations; Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a TV Drama (2015). Hidden Figures (2016)* as Katherine Johnson, the African American NASA mathematician who calculated the trajectories for John Glenn's 1962 Mercury orbital flight; the film earned three Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and grossed $236 million on a $25 million budget. Person of Interest (2011-2013), Acrimony (2018). Henson's autobiography Around the Way Girl (2016) became a New York Times* bestseller. Co-founded the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation in 2018 to support mental health resources for African Americans.
Featured throughout 21st-century American TV and film.
Taraji reduces to eight — the number of Hidden Figures.