Every generation marvels at the pace of change around it. It's not just that the world is different, it's that it's changing faster. Our parents said it, and now so do we. Is it just a trick of perspective as we get older? Or is our culture actually accelerating?
When it comes to names, I'd say it's a reality: the pace of change is changing. I've taken a rough measure of change by tracking the "novelty rate": the pace of previously uncommon names becoming popular. For each decade, I logged the number of names in the top 1000 for boys and girls which had not made the list in the prior two decades. This novelty rate more than doubled from the 1920s to the 1990s (with a spike in the 1970s, which I'll discuss in a moment):
As you might expect, the styles of novelty changed along with the rate. Here's a closeup of the biggest new names of each decade -- the ones that jumped from obscurity to the top 250. (The higher the name on the chart, the more popular it was.)
Through the '40s, the most common kind of novelty was the use of pet forms like Bobby, Ronnie and Cathy as given names. Starting in the '50s, we start to see more variant spellings (Katelyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlyn) and surname and gender crossovers (Kelly, Lindsay, Taylor). And in the '70s, we see the emergence of distinctly African-American names. This, in fact, is the core of the overall novelty spike in the '70s. In the wake of the Black Power movement, black and white names diverged significantly for the first time and over 100 of the novel names of the '70s were chosen largely by African-American parents.
The names of our decade are still being chosen, but a peek at the 2003 list suggests there's plenty more change ahead. Creative spellings in particular are exploding -- try 10 new variants of Jaden for boys and girls. And ethnic diversity is increasing, with names like Pranav and Hamza making the list for several years running. So don't worry, it's not just you slowing down. The culture really is speeding up.
Comments
Out of 81 children at my son's daycare (in No. Virginia), 12 names begin with M (2 Miles and 2 Maya). Other common names include: Emily/Emma/Amelie/Emeline, Charlie (2), Jack/Jackson, Eoin/Ian, Ethan (2), Taylor (2), Quin (2), Piper (2). No names begin with the letters O, U, V, X, or Y.first initial frequencyM 13E 10C 8J 7T 5S 4K 4L 4A 3B 3N 3P 3Q 2R 2I 2H 2D 2Z 1W 1F 1G 1Grand Total 81
Oops - I meant 13 begin with M. Besides Miles and Maya, there are also:MadelineMadisonMaeveMaggieMargaretMaxwellMichaelaMirandaMorgan
The name-centric graph seems to indicate that the new names are far more often female than male. I wonder why it is we seem more comfortable giving new innovative names to our girls than to our boys.
Do you think that this novelty trend mirrors the pace of change in other areas? My hunch (though you're the researcher!) is that similar accelerations have taken place in fashion, etc. Maybe this is because as we increasingly buy technologies that keep us wired into consumer culture--radios, televisions, computers-- we become more responsive to trends. It is in businesses' best interest to keep fashions and technologies changing because it ensures constant buying to stay on top of the trends. Mass media, which has been a growing presence in the home over the last century especially, delivers that change. I'd be interested in whether the novelty rate in names began to rise with the advent of mass-market periodicals in the nineteenth century.Thanks for the neat post.--Amanda
I can't help but raise this question (and I'm just now finding these archives so forgive me if this has been addressed before): but how does increasing ethnic diversity and pride in one's ethnic heritage play into the increase in names like "Hamza" etc? For example: not only is there a greater interest in non-WASPy names in the WASP mainstream, but also consider how much more diverse populations are becoming everyday. Names like Samira, Maya, Yasmin, Ali, and Mohamed may be showing up on the charts much more now, but those names are also extrordinarily common in Eastern (Persian, Arab, and Indian for example) culture. The more Arabs permanently immigrating to the US means the more Arab names we'll see.Also, consider this. My grandparents immigrated here from Hungary. Meet Arpad and Zsuzsu. They struggled through the 1930s and 40s to enter that hallowed realm of "normalcy" defined by their suburban, Midwestern neighborhood. Therefore, they gave their twin daughters, born in 1950, very non-Slavic names: Susan and Ellen. My mother, who married my Indian dad and thus brought me into the world, suffered much criticism from her parents not only for marrying a man with a difficult Tamil last name, but also for giving me a very slavic ("Ilona") first name and a decidely Tamil middle name (Jeevomani)-- a nightmare of pronunciation and ethnic markers to their ears. My parents were proud of their heritage and diversity, and they named me accordingly -- unlike their parents who shied from anything they perceived as less American (going so far as changing their first names to the more mainstream "Arthur" and "Sally" and their surname to an more pallatable anglicised version).As for myself, I grew up in a largely Arab/Persian community due to my best friends being Lebanese and Iranian, respectively. So in my world, I've been hearing "trendy and exotic" names like Fatima, Maya, and Yasmin for years.
Ilona, sorry but your name is not Slavic but Hungarian, and so are Arpad and Szuszu. Actually Arpad is the name of the ancient Hungarian royal dynasty.
Actually, the name is Zsuzsa (not Szuszu, and not Zsuzsu). Zsuzsa is the Hungarian version of Susan.
Conner - now there's a completely pointless 'novel name'. They have just changed one letter of Connor, a perfectly normal Irish name, to come up with Conner, which just looks wrong. It looks like 'someone who cons', a con-man. That is what I always see when I see this name. An unfortunate misspelling that looks like it means 'con-artist'.
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