💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 1830.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 07:49:30. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-05)

➡️ Next capture (2024-05-10)

🚧 View Differences

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Parents Choosing More Unusual Baby Names Now

2010-02-25 08:57:05

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.