What Your Baby’s Name Signals

The Great Recession could have affected what you named your baby.

According to a recent study, parents respond to economic hardship by giving their babies uncommon names. When parents select popular baby names, they are displaying their solidarity with the community. By contrast, an unusual name conveys individualism and perhaps the need to have an offspring stand out.

For 2023, some of the following most popular names appear to be uncommon.

Most Popular Baby Names

Popular Names

Listed by the Social Security Administration, these were last year’s top ten for boys and girls:

Liam has been #1 for seven years while for Olivia, this is the fifth:

Looking at each of those names, we can ask what the parents are telling us. These are some possibilities…

1. Names sometimes correlate with politics.

Conservative parents use more masculine sounding traditional names with harder consonants and/or fewer syllables. We might have the perfect example from Republican Sarah Palin (2008 VP candidate). She named two of her daughters Bristol and Piper and her two sons, Trig and Track.

Meanwhile, parents who are more liberal tend to select uncommon names that have obscure significance. For example, they might name their children Franny and Zooey because of J.D. Salinger. They also will select names with a more “feminine feel” and softer sounding letters.

The Republican end of a diagram (Blue/Democrat; Pink/Republican):

The Democrat end of a diagram (Blue/Democrat; Pink/Republican):

2. Names can reveal consumption patterns.

According to researchers at the University of Chicago, our next step could be to hypothesize consumption patterns.  Distinguishing themselves through tradition and wealth, conservative households vote Republican, own small businesses, occupy managerial positions and shop at Brooks Brothers. Liberals meanwhile like to communicate their cultural prestige by driving a Prius, having solar panels and wearing a Peruvian woven scarf that expresses a social concern for the world.

3. Names have connected to jobs.

Recalling that Usain Bolt is the world’s fastest runner, we can ask if a name relates to what we do. Nominative determinism tells us yes, names can connect to the jobs we select. Studies indicate that people named Dennis or Denise tended to become dentists more than the rest of us. The Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England also told us that two urologists were named Splatt and Weedon. Somewhat similarly, one name in geriatric medicine was Dyer and for dermatology, we had Dr. Boyle.

These are some of the examples:

Our Bottom Line: Signaling

While I am not sure about the academic rigor for some of the baby naming research, I do believe that many parents say something through their children’s names. They send a signal.

Explained by behavioral economists, signaling can involve a very specific act that conveys a much broader message. Politicians vote for the death penalty to show they are tough on crime. Someone shops at Annye’s Organics to demonstrate concern about the environment. And, you name your little boy Odysseus to display your knowledge of Greek mythology as you nudge him in a literary direction.

My sources and more: The Social Security Administration just published its annual list of the most popular baby names. From there, this Psychology article linked to a study on the impact of the Great Recession while this paper looked at nominative determinism. Then, this Washington Post article on the significance of names takes the next step.

Please note that parts of today’s post were in a past econlife.