Naming Your Baby Something Unique
MarketingCharts (which I must admit has become one of my favorite sites) points to a study about the increasing uniqueness of baby names:
Researchers found that in 1955, nearly one-third (32%) of boys received one of the ten most popular names, but by 2007, less than 10% got a common name.
For girls, the percentage receiving common names is even lower. In 1955, about one in four (22%) girls received one of the ten most popular names. By 2007 it had dropped to only 8%.
The article (and study apparently) go on to make some assumptions about what effect this shift may have (including increased narcissism). While I’m not sure I agree with those, it’s fun to think about why this shift has happened and what effect it may have.
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So fascinating. I wonder what’s driving this? An increased awareness of the importance of branding? The usefulness of having unique online identity? Smart search engine optimization?
Ha!
Incidentally, the name Noah was the 205th most popular male name in the 80s. Since then it’s skyrocketed, and was measured to be 15th most popular in 2006.
Do you think you could have an old friend or family member weigh in on whether or not you’ve become less narcissistic over time as your name has become more popular?
Meanwhile, I’ve gone the other way — from 57th to 137th. That probably explains why I’ve become such a handful.
I think we have a generation of Jennifers and Jasons naming their children. It might snap back to common names as this generation grows up constantly saying, “You spell it like this…”
I like unusual, easy to spell names for my (future) kids. When I gave myself a new middle name a few weeks ago, I went with “Marlow”. It’s uncommon, but easy to spell.
I’ve heard a corollary to this, which is that an unusually high number of boys’ names all end with the same letter, ‘n’ – e.g. bryan, lorin, kevin, etc. Even as the namespace fans out in one direction it constricts in another.
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/05/the_trend_in_la.html
The Freakonomics book also discussed the topic of baby names, exploring whether there is a connection between baby names and success in life (think NFL: Priest, Lawyer, Plaxico, Atari, Craphonso, etc.)
There was a story about 2 babies who were actually named Winner and Loser, respectively. It turns out that Winner ended up being a complete disaster (involved in crime) and Loser became a successful businessman.
In other words, no connection was found between someone’s name and future success, however, it’s still interesting to explore someone’s thought process when they’re coming up with these unconventional names.
A trend in the 80′s was to give all your children names with the same first letter. I’ve often told people we chose our kids’ names — Noah and Leah — because they ended with the same last letter (totally untrue, btw, but it always got an interesting reaction :-)
I’ll admit when we decided on our daughter’s name – Margo – I was happy to see it wasn’t in the top names from the Social Security Administration!
And of course I got the domain names for her name…
mp/m
In my younger & more vulnerable years, I had a friend whose name was unique. She was taunted so mercilessly that, when she turned 18, she changed it to Janice. To people who believe uniqueness will be applied if and only if the child’s name is unique, think again. Though we have a Barack in office presently, our last was named George, the guy before that was Bill, then George, a Ronald, Jimmy, etc. I absolutely agree that narcissism drives the impulse to name your child Shiloh when you live in Iowa.
The most common effect of this naming schema is to drive a wedge between your child and his/her peers at a time when being part of the crowd is of PARAMOUNT importance.
My initial thought is that it probably has to do with the “un-whitening” of the US population.
I’ve been trying to find the minority population from the 1950 census, but haven’t had any luck (fyi: whites comprised 74% of the pop in 2006).
So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a correlation between larger minority representation and greater name diversity.
My dos centavos.
If you like baby names and charts you will have a ball with this link.
http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager
Amazing interactive chart for names since 1880
hahaha, just inputted Noah, dude, your trending very nicely in recent years
@stephen kids will taunt each other, it doesn’t matter what their name is. I can say with some authority that having a unique name is no handicap as a child, nor as an adult.
I don’t know why parents go for unique names. We are currently searching for a girl’s name beginning with E. (No Elizabeth or variations.) We were leaning toward Emma, until we found out it was the most popular name. So, I’m guilty of going for a unique name, and I still don’t know why.
@Alex: Hrm, not sure about that, but your comment made me look up an article about black names (which I couldn’t find) but I did run across this, from Freakonomics: http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/
Very interesting.
Thanks Alex.
Would it be too simplistic to suggest that as our circle (pool of knowledge, access to information) has grown tremendously in the last 15 years or so we are bombarded with the common names more so than we would have when our circles were smaller. And if we assume that most humans get tired of what is very common, and since we do have more access to information to seek less common names (internet, more television) we are naming kids more unique names?
My 2 yr old niece was named Sahana; my sister borrowed the name from the only other namesake we (my sister & her husband, and the rest of the family) knew – a character on TV.
I believe most people at most times seek individuality and if it is not displayed it is perhaps due to lack of opportunity.
[I was the only one in my school with my name. I have a love hate relationship with my name :P]
@Noah…Thanks for the Freakonomics piece (have read the book, but it’s always an interesting read).
There are a few reasons why I think that name diversity may be attributed to the “un-whitening” of the US (and by ‘minority,’ I don’t just mean the black population).
Let’s look at three minority groups: Blacks, Hispanics and asian/middle-eastern immigrants:
Blacks: Per the Freakonomics article, “nearly 30 percent of the black girls are given a name that is unique among every baby, white and black, born that year in California.” Another point that was also mentioned in the article is the influence the Black Power movement has had on names. Whereas in the 1950s Blacks were given mostly white names, after the Civil Rights movement there was a greater desire to embrace their African heritage – and names were one of the easiest ways to do so.
Hispanics: The 2005 Census shows that “One in five children under 18 is Hispanic” (Wash Post article from 2005, “Hispanic Growth Surge Fueled by Births in US”). Moreover, “births have overtaken immigration this decade as the largest source of Hispanic growth.” This is important, considering that latinos usually gives their children Spanish names, and thus further increasing the ‘name pool.’
Immigrants: “While the size of the overall immigrant population (legal and illegal) has tripled since 1970, the number of immigrants from the Middle East has grown more than seven-fold, from less than 200,000 in 1970 to nearly 1.5 million in 2000″ (World Net Daily, “Middle Eastern immigrants to U.S. increasing”). Now, this doesn’t account for births, but I think it’s a compelling point.
Basically, my point is this (sorry this is so long): blacks in the 1950s literally needed to conform to a white society and therefore give their children ‘white’ names; the hispanic population today is immensely larger than it was in the 50s and latino children are usually given Spanish names; immigrants in the first half of the 20th century were mainly European and therefore Christian – giving their children names that were easily translated into English – whereas now, immigrants come from much more diverse areas around the world with wholly different languages and religious backgrounds.
That’s all I got.
OK, I’m done…time to start working….