Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Forenames and Social Stratification

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Names, Ethnicity and Populations

Part of the book series: Advances in Spatial Science ((ADVSPATIAL))

Abstract

The apparently innocuous act of naming a newborn baby anywhere in the world belies the parents’ cultural baggage of social expectations and ethno-cultural customs that have evolved over generations. In this chapter we argue that the choice of forenames that parents select for their children is by no means a random one. A multitude of cultural, religious, linguistic, geographic and socioeconomic factors play an important role in the forename/s chosen for a new member of a family. When these forenaming preferences are carefully studied over time, space and social groups, evidence repeatedly shows that forename choice follows very clear “fashion waves” and changes in cultural preferences. These choices in return leave distinct cultural traits in forename distributions by ethnic, social and religious groups. The factors driving forenaming choices operate both at the individual and societal levels through internal and external influences in parents. A review of these studies in several countries is presented providing additional clues that allow us to disentangle social strata in a population, especially with respect to ethnicity in forenaming practices.

“[A name is] a repository of accumulated meanings, practices and beliefs, a powerful linguistic means of asserting identity …and inhabiting a social world” (Rymes 2001: 160)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adamic L (1942) What’s your name? Harper & Brothers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Alford R (1988) Naming and identity: a cross-cultural study of personal naming practices. Hraf Press, New Haven, CT

    Google Scholar 

  • Arai M, Skogman Thoursie P (2009) Renouncing personal names: an empirical examination of surname change and earnings. J Labor Econ 27(1):127–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barry H, Harper A (2000) Three last letters identify most female first names. Psychol Rep 87(1):48–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Batty M (2006) Rank clocks. Nature 444(7119):592–596. doi:10.1038/nature05302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Batty M (2010) Visualizing space–time dynamics in scaling systems. Complexity 16(2):51–63.doi:10.1068/a210587

    Google Scholar 

  • Beaumont J, Inglis K (1989) Geodemographics in practice: developments in Britain and Europe. Environ Plann A 21(5):587–604

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson S, Bruck G, Bodenhorn B (2006) Injurious names: naming, disavowal, and recuperation in contexts of slavery and emancipation. In: Vom Bruck G, Bodenhorn B (eds) An anthropology of names and naming. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 178–194

    Google Scholar 

  • Bertrand M, Mullainathan S, Ullainathan SEM (2004) Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. Am Econ Rev 94(4):991–1013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Besnard P, Desplanques G (2001) Temporal stratification of taste: the social diffusion of first names. Revue francaise de sociologie 42:65–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Birkin M, Clarke G (1998) GIS, geodemographics, and spatial modeling in the UK financial service industry. J Hous Res 9(1):87–111

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloothooft G, Groot L (2008) Name clustering on the basis of parental preferences. Names 56(3):111–163. doi:10.1179/175622708X332851

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloothooft G, Onland D (2011) Socioeconomic determinants of first names. Names 59(1):25–41. doi:10.1179/002777311X12942225544679

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bolin AU (2005) The effects of first name stereotypes on ratings of job. Am J Psychol Res 1(1):11–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnard T (2001) Slave naming patterns: onomastics and the taxonomy of race in eighteenth-century Jamaica. J Interdiscip Hist 31(3):325–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busse TV, Seraydarian L (1978) Frequency and desirability of first names. J Soc Psychol 104(1):143–144. doi:10.1080/00224545.1978.9924050

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Callary E (1997) The geography of personal name forms. Prof Geogr 49:494

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheshire J, Longley P (2011) Spatial concentrations of surnames in Great Britain. Procedia Soc Behav Sci 21:279–286. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.07.047

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cole K, Dingle R, Bhayani R (2005) Pledger modelling: help the aged case study. Int J Nonprofit

    Google Scholar 

  • Copley JE, Brownlow S (1995) The interactive effects of facial maturity and name warmth on perceptions of job candidates. Basic Appl Soc Psychol 16(1–2):251–265. doi:10.1080/01973533.1995.9646112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cotton J, O’Neill B, Griffin A (2008) The “name game”: affective and hiring reactions to first names. J Manag Psychol 23(1):18–39. doi:10.1108/02683940810849648

    Google Scholar 

  • Crisp DR, Apostal RA, Luessenheide HD (1984) The relationship of frequency and social desirability of first names with academic and sex role variables. J Soc Psychol 123(1):143–144. doi:10.1080/00224545.1984.9924527

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darden DK, Robinson IRAE (1976) Multidimensional scaling of men’s first names: a sociolinguistic approach. Sociometry 39(4):422–431

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dinur R, Beit-Hallahmi B, Hofman JE (1996) First names as identity stereotypes. J Soc Psychol 136(2):191–200. doi:10.1080/00224545.1996.9713993

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erwin PG (1993) First names and perceptions of physical attractiveness. J Psychol 127(6):625–631

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Experian UK Ltd. (2006) Mosaic consumer classification for the UK. Experian UK Ltd., Nottingham, Nov 2006. Retrieved from http://www.business-strategies.co.uk/upload/downloads/mosaicukbrochure.pdf

  • Finch J (2008) Naming names: kinship, individuality and personal names. Sociology 42(4):709–725. doi:10.1177/0038038508091624

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fryer RG, Levitt SD (2004) The causes and consequences of distinctively black names. Quart J Econ 119(3):767–805

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fucilla JG (1943) The anglicization of Italian surnames in the United States. Am Speech 18(1):26–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garwood S (1976) First-name stereotypes as a factor in self-concept and school achievement. J Educ Psychol 68(4):482–487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guéguen N, Pascual A (2011) Are people with attractive names more employable? An evaluation in a field setting. Eur J Econ 38:164–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanks P, Tucker DK (2000) A diagnostic database of American personal names. Names 48(1):59–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanks P, Hardcastle K, Hodges F (2006) Oxford dictionary of first names. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harari H, McDavid JW (1973) Name stereotypes and teachers’ expectations. J Educ Psychol 65(2):222–225

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herzfeld M (1991) A place in history: social and monumental time in a Cretan town. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Heuvelink C (2012) Forming impressions from English and French first names: is there an in-group effect in Québec? Psychol Rep 110:166–172. doi:10.2466/07.17.28.PR0.110.1.166-172

  • Hogan B, Berry B (2011) Racial and ethnic biases in rental housing: an audit study of online apartment listings. City Commun 10(4):351–372. doi:10/1111/j.1540-6040.2011.01376.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iceland J, Mateos P, Sharp G (2011) Ethnic residential segregation by nativity in Great Britain and the United States. J Urban Aff 33(4):409–429. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9906.2011.00555.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jayaraman RDA (2005) Personal identity in a globalized world: cultural roots of Hindu personal names and surnames. J Popular Cult 38(3):476–490

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkings R (1996) Social identity. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalist D, Lee D (2009) First names and crime: does unpopularity spell trouble? Soc Sci Quart 90(1):39–49. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00601.x

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan A (1964) The conduct of inquiry: methodology for behavioral science. Chandler, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotilainen S (2011) The genealogy of personal names: towards a more productive method in historical onomastics. Scand J Hist 36(1):44–64, Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21542200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawson ED (1971) Semantic differential analysis of men’s first names. J Psychol 78:229–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawson ED (1984) Personal names: 100 years of social science contributions. Names a Journal of Onomastics 32(1):45–74

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawson ED (2004) Religious, patriotic, and ethnic factors involved with names and naming in Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Azerbaijan. In: Boullón Agrelo AI (ed) Novi te ex nomine: estudos filolóxicos. Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, A Coruña, Spain, pp 1–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Levitt SD, Dubner SJ (2005) Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. Penguin Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Levitt P, Glick-Schiller N (2004) Conceptualizing simultaneity: a transnational perspective on society. Int Migrat Rev 38(3):1002–1039. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberson S (2000) A matter of taste: how names, fashions, and culture change. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberson S, Bell EO (1992) Children’s first names: an empirical study of social taste. Am J Sociol 98(3):511–554

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberson S, Mikelson KS (1995) Distinctive African American names: an experimental, historical, and linguistic analysis of innovation. Am Sociol Rev 60(6):928–946

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone RDA-A (2005) Some aspects of German-Jewish names. Ger Life Lett 58(2):164–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Longley P, Webber R, Li C (2006) The UK geography of the e-society: a national classification. CASA Working Papers nr. 111. UCL London. Retrieved from http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/3343/1/3343.pdf

  • Massey DS, Denton NA (1988) The dimensions of residential segregation. Soc Forces 67:281–315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mateos P (2007) An ontology of ethnicity based upon personal names. Implications for neighbourhood profiling. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Department of Geography, University College London, London. Retrieved from http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/16145/

  • Mateos P, Tucker DK (2008) Forenames and surnames in Spain in 2004. Names 56(3):165–184. doi:10.1179/175622708X332860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mateos P, Webber R, Longley PA (2006) How segregated are name origins? A new method of measuring ethnic residential segregation. In: Priestnall G, Aplin P (eds) GIS Research UK 14th Annual Conference (GISRUK). University of Nottingham, pp 285–291

    Google Scholar 

  • Mateos P, Webber R, Longley PA (2007) The cultural, ethnic and linguistic classification of populations and neighbourhoods using personal names. (C. for A. S. Analysis, Ed.) CASA Working Paper 116. University College London, London. Retrieved from http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/publications/working-paper-116

  • Mateos P, Longley PA, O’Sullivan D (2011) Ethnicity and population structure in personal naming networks. PLoS One 6(9):e22943. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022943

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarty C, Bernard HR, Killworth PD, Shelley GA, Johnsen EC (1997) Eliciting representative samples of personal networks. Soc Networks 19(4):303–323

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mead G (1934) Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a behaviorist. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Mencken HL (1963) The American language: a preliminary inquiry into the development of English in the United States. Alfred A. Knopf, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell V, McGoldrick P (1994) The role of geodemographics in segmenting and targeting consumer markets: a Delphi study. Eur J Market 28(5):54–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Nieto MG (2000) Evolución del nombre de pila en el País Vasco peninsular. Fontes linguae vasconum: Studia et documenta 32(83):151–168

    Google Scholar 

  • Osgood CE, Suci GJ, Tannenbaum PH (1957) The measurement of meaning, vol 49. University of Illinois Press, Urbana-Campaign, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Parekh S, Parekh S (2003) Asian babies’ names from the hindu, muslim and sikh traditions. Elliot Right Way Books, Tadworth, Surrey

    Google Scholar 

  • Razum O, Zeeb H, Akgun SDA (2001) How useful is a name-based algorithm in health research among Turkish migrants in Germany? Trop Med Int Health 6(8):654–661

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riach PA, Rich J (2002) Field experiments of discrimination in the market place. Econ J 112(483):F480–F518. doi:10.1111/1468-0297.00080

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rickel AU, Lynn RA (1981) Name ambiguity and androgyny. Sex Roles 7(10):1057–1066

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossi AS (1965) Naming children in middle class families. Am Sociol Rev 30:499–513

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rymes B (2001) Names. In: Duranti A (ed) Key terms in language and culture. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 158–161

    Google Scholar 

  • Savage M, Burrows R (2007) The coming crisis of empirical sociology. Sociology 41(5):885–899. doi:10.1177/0038038507080443

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart J-AL, Segalowitz SJ (1991) Differences in the given names of good and poor readers. Can J Educ/Revue 16(1):103–105

    Google Scholar 

  • Sue CA, Telles EE (2007) Assimilation and gender in naming. Am J Sociol 112(5):1383–1415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tan PKW (2004) Evolving naming patterns: anthroponymics within a theory of the dynamics of non Anglo Englishes. World Englishes 23(3):367–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker DK (2002) Distribution of forenames, surnames, and forename-surname pairs in Canada. Names 50(2):105–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker DK (2003a) Surnames, forenames and correlations. In: Hanks P (ed) Dictionary of American family names. Oxford University Press, New York, pp xxiii–xxvii

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker DK (2003b) An analysis of the forenames and surnames of England and Wales listed in the UK Census data. Onoma 38:181–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker DK (2009) Increased competition and reduced popularity: US given name trends of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Names 57(1):52–62. doi:10.1179/175622709X402663

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waldfogel J (1999) Preference externalities: an empirical study of who benefits whom in differentiated product markets. NBER Working Paper No. 7391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Washington. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w7391

  • Wallace R, Wolf A (1999) Contemporary sociological theory. Prentice Hall, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams W (1956) Gosforth: the sociology of an English village. Free Press, Glencoe, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolfram W, Thomas E (2008) Development of African American English. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods RD (1984) Hispanic first names: a comprehensive dictionary of 250 years of Mexican-American usage. Greenwood, Westport, CN

    Google Scholar 

  • Zelinsky W (1970) Cultural variation in personal name patterns in the eastern United States. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 60(4):743–769

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zittoun T (2004) Symbolic competencies for developmental transitions: the case of the choice of first names. Cult Psychol 10(2):131–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, CIESAS, Guadalajara, Mexico

    Pablo Mateos

  2. Department of Geography, University College London, London, UK

    Pablo Mateos

Authors
  1. Pablo Mateos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Mateos, P. (2014). Forenames and Social Stratification. In: Names, Ethnicity and Populations. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45413-4_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45413-4_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-45412-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-45413-4

  • eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation