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Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
livescience Managing Editor
livescience.com Wed Feb 24, 11:46 am ET
Celebrities aren't the only ones giving their babies unusual names. Compared
with decades ago, parents are choosing less common names for kids, which could
suggest an emphasis on uniqueness and individualism, according to new research.
Essentially, today's kids (and later adults) will stand out from classmates.
For instance, in the 1950s, the average first-grade class of 30 children would
have had at least one boy named James (top name in 1950), while in 2013, six
classes will be necessary to find only one Jacob, even though that was the most
common boys' name in 2007.
The researchers suspect the uptick of unusual baby names could be a sign of a
change in culture from one that applauded fitting in to today's emphasis on
being unique and standing out. When taken too far, however, this individualism
could also lead to narcissism, according to study researcher Jean Twenge, of
San Diego State University.
Baby naming history
The results come from an analysis of 325 million baby names recorded by the
Social Security Administration from 1880 to 2007. The research team figured out
the percentage of babies given the most popular name or a name among the 10,
20, or 50 most popular for that year and sex. Since it wasn't required that
people get a social security card until 1937, names before that time may not be
random samples of the population, the researchers note.
Results showed parents were less likely to choose those popular names as time
went on. For instance, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, about 5 percent of
babies were named the top common name, while more recently that dropped to 1
percent.
1880s, while now fewer than 10 percent do.
1945 to 8 percent in 2007.
one of the 50 most popular names until the mid-20th century. Now, just one in
four have these names.
(A list of top-10 baby names by year, and their popularity, can be found here.)
This trend in baby-naming didn't show a constant decrease. Between 1880 and
1919, fewer parents were giving their children common names, though from 1920
to the 1940s common names were used more often than before. Then, when baby
boomers came on the scene, so did more unusual names.
The biggest decrease in usage of common names came in the 1990s, said Twenge,
who is also an author of "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of
Entitlement" (Free Press, 2009) and "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans
Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before"
(Free Press, 2007).
Naming narcissists
The results held even when the researchers accounted for immigration rates and
increasing Latino populations, which could bring relatively less common names
into the mix.
"The most compelling explanation left is this idea that parents are much more
focused on their children standing out," Twenge told LiveScience. "There's been
this cultural shift toward focusing on the individual, toward standing out and
being unique as opposed to fitting in with the group and following the rules."
The positive side of individualism, Twenge said, is that there is less
prejudice and more tolerance for minority groups. But she warns that when
individualism is taken too far, the result is narcissism.
"I think it is an indication of our culture becoming more narcissistic," Twenge
said.
Past research has shown that back in the 1950s parents placed a lot of
importance on a child being obedient, which has gone way down. "Parenting has
become more permissive and more child-focused and [parents] are much more
reluctant to be authority figures," Twenge said.
As for whether these unusually named kids will have personalities to match is
not known.
"It remains to be seen whether having a unique name necessarily leads to
narcissism later in life," Twenge said. "If that unique name is part of a
parent's overall philosophy that their child is special and needs to stand out
and that fitting in is a bad thing, then that could lead to those personality
traits."
The research, which is detailed in the January issue of the journal Social
Psychological and Personality Science, also included Emodish M. Abebe of SDSU
and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia in Athens.