Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names

Xi, Ning; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhang, Yicheng; Ge, Zehui; She, Li; Zhang, Kui

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2014.03.042

Cited by 14 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…En España se ha producido una evolución desde una situación en que pocos nombres eran compartidos por muchas personas hasta una época de mucha mayor dispersión onomástica, en que priman otros valores a la hora de elegir un nombre, como la originalidad y el individualismo (FERNÁNDEZ JUNCAL, 2002, 2019GARCÍA GALLARÍN, 2007). Es la misma situación que encuentran Xi et al (2014) para los nombres más frecuentes de Estados Unidos a lo largo de 130 años: "The given names change from few take all to a more equally distributed way over time" (Xi et al 2014,p. 141).…”

Section: Análisis Generalunclassified

CConvergencia y divergencia de los repertorios antroponímicos brasileño y español

Juncal¹,

Seide²

2021

Fórum Linguist.

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Este trabajo indaga en los aspectos convergentes y divergentes de los repertorios antroponímicos español y brasileño. A partir de los datos generados por organismos estatales (INE e IBGE) y considerando los nombres más populares, se señala la evolución de ambos catálogos a lo largo de las uúltimas nueve décadas, desde una gran convergencia a una divergencia notable, en línea con las tendencias globales detectadas en otras sintopías. No obstante, las similitudes en general son muy destacadas, como corresponde a repertorios de lenguas muy próximas, cuyas trayectorias históricas y culturales se han desarrollado paralelamente.

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Section: Análisis Generalunclassified

CConvergencia y divergencia de los repertorios antroponímicos brasileño y español

Juncal¹,

Seide²

2021

Fórum Linguist.

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“…In Sect. 4, the results are discussed in terms of the rally 'round the flag effect [8] and the Simmel theory of fashion [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tracing the fashion of names, one can learn about emotional reactions to popular personalities in a social scale. Contrary to previous research [2][3][4][5], which dealt with statistical averages, here we are going to concentrate on case studies. Namely, we intend to trace the popularity of names of U.S. presidents in the 20th century and to compare the results with those on the names of selected celebrities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming Boys after U.S. Presidents in 20th Century

et al. 2016

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This paper deals with the popularity of given names in the United States, for the period 1885-2009. Based on the data obtained from the website of U.S. Social Security Administration, it was demonstrated that the fashion of naming babies after the incumbent American president passed away in the '60s. At the same time, however, examples were given, mainly concerning celebrities, after whom babies are still named. The above theses were strengthened with the aid of quantitative data analysis by constructing an index dedicated to the specifics of the task under investigation. The obtained results were discussed in the terms of the rally effect and of the Simmel theory of fashion.

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“…As a cultural trait, names are of particular interest for studying the internal drivers of cultural evolution as their popularity depends entirely on cultural influence-names are essentially unconstrained individual choices, shorn of commercial interest [13]. Consequently, numerous models have been proposed to explain the volatile dynamics of name usage, as this can highlight mechanisms of cultural change [14][15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Network analysis of the social and demographic influences on name choice within the UK (1838-2016)

Bush¹,

Powell-Smith²,

Freeman³

2018

Preprint

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Chosen names reflect a society’s changing values, aspirations and cultural diversity. Vogues in name usage can be easily shown on a case by case basis, by plotting the rise and fall in their popularity over time. However, individual name choices are not made in isolation and trends in naming are better understood as group-level phenomena. Here we use network analysis to examine onomastic (name) datasets in order to explore the influences on name choices within the UK over the last 170 years. Using a large representative sample of approximately 22 million chosen forenames from England and Wales given between 1838 and 2014, along with a complete population sample of births registered between 1996 and 2016, we demonstrate how trends in name usage can be visualised as network graphs.By exploring the structure of these graphs, various patterns of name use become readily apparent, which can be interpreted in the context of historic events, such as known waves of migration. In general, we show that the topology of network graphs can reveal naming vogues, and that naming vogues are a reflection of social and demographic changes.Many name choices are consistent with a self-correcting feedback loop, whereby rarer names become common because there are virtues perceived in their rarity, yet with these perceived virtues lost upon increasing commonality. Towards the present day, the comparatively greater range of media, freedom of movement, and ability to maintain globally-distributed social networks increases the number of possible names, but also ensures they may more quickly be perceived as commonplace. Consequently, contemporary naming vogues are relatively short-lived with many name choices appearing a balance struck between recognisability and rarity.The data are available via an easy-to-use web interface at http://demos.flourish.studio/namehistory.

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Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names

Cited by 14 publications

References 23 publications

CConvergencia y divergencia de los repertorios antroponímicos brasileño y español

CConvergencia y divergencia de los repertorios antroponímicos brasileño y español

Naming Boys after U.S. Presidents in 20th Century

Network analysis of the social and demographic influences on name choice within the UK (1838-2016)

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