One answer is that it represents a growing cultural shift toward individualism. What is causing these changing shifts – besides the random whims of fashion? And what are the effects it may have on future generations? Psychologists and sociologists studying the phenomenon are finding some surprising answers. By 1994, 77% of the sample had unique names unlike anyone else the same year.
They found that in 1894, 32% of names were unique, meaning they weren’t given to anyone else in the sample. In another, researchers analysed the names given to children in a German town. A recent study in Japan examined naming practices between 20 and found that Japanese parents created unique baby names by pairing traditional Chinese characters with uncommon pronunciations. The trend also doesn’t seem limited to the United States or UK. In America for example, an unusual spelling of Jaxson, an otherwise top-50 name, is becoming more prevalent, while in the UK, it has become trendy to give kids a double-barrelled first name, like Amelia-Rose. Twenge notes that people are coming up with new ways to give unique names, including unique spellings of more popular names. For example, while more than 30% of boys were given a top-10 name in 1950, less than 10% of boys were given a top-10 name in 2007. A study conducted in 2010 by Jean Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University, examined the names of 325 million American babies born between 18 and found that common names have decreased in popularity since 1950. They mark who we are in gender terms, ethnic terms and other ways.”Īnd yet parents are also increasingly giving children more unusual, or unique names. “They are also part of our social cultural identity. “Names are at the core of our identity and are also related to important legal identities, how we are identified by states and governments,” says Jane Pilcher, a sociologist at the University of Leicester.
Over the last few years, however, judges across the world have had to intervene and challenge parents’ choices: Nutella, which was banned in France Cyanide, which was outlawed in the UK and perhaps most bizarrely, the girl called ‘Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii’ in New Zealand, who was put under court guardianship so that she could pick a more traditional name. Parents may agonise over the name of their latest arrival – but rarely do they expect the decision to end up in a court.
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