A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions and Culture Change (review)

Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson opens this book by noting that after he and his wife had named their daughter Rebecca, they were struck by the number of other parents who had chosen that name. Yet they had not consulted lists of popular names or been influenced by any particular marketing efforts for the name. How, L wondered, do names become fashionable? A matter of taste seeks to answer this question, examining the popularity of names by researching birth records in a variety of states and countries. More broadly though, L sees the study of names as a window into the development of fashion, especially in that names are insulated from marketing and economics (it costs as much to name a child Rebecca as to name her something else). As a result L sees the study of names as a valuable perspective that cultural studies can use to elucidate the internal dynamics of culture and to understand what he calls the ‘cultural surface’ of society.

L distinguishes several factors that influence tastes. Tastes are partially molded externally, by technological change and broad social movements and by historical events and commodities—presidencies and scandals, high and popular culture. Thus names sometimes become fashionable because of a public figure (Jacqueline, from Jacqueline Kennedy, or Gary, from Gary Cooper) or unpopular because of a reviled figure or a comic one (Adolph, from its connection with Hitler, or Donald, from its association with Disney’s duck). L sees external social forces as having their biggest effect on the rate of change in naming fashions. He notes that the rate of change in names’ popularity began to increase in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and he attributes this to greater education, urbanization, and changes in the family structure, all of which correlate with increases in the rate of change. Broader social changes such as feminism and the civil rights movement influence naming patterns as well. L also finds gender differences in the rate of change of names’ popularity. Boys’ names are slightly less subject to changes in taste, which he attributes to boys’ names being more likely to be carriers of family tradition.

While external events are part of what drives fashion, they are not the whole picture. Taste is a form of continually-changing collective behavior molded by subtle internal mechanisms having to do with the sound shape and semantic associations of names. Among these features are certain name stems (car-/kar-, as in Karen, Caroline, Carrie, Carol; jen-, as in Jennifer, Jenna, Jennie, Janine; ju-, as in Judith, June, Julia, Juliet) and name endings (-a for girls, as in Anna, Barbara, Clara, Donna, Pamela, Norma, Patricia, Virginia, as well as -lyn, and -ine). There are also preferences and avoidances for certain types of names—Old Testament names are consistently popular for example. Other names, such as those associated with decoration (Violet, Rose, Daisy, Lily) or which connote age (Esther, Gladys) have lost favor. Preferences for certain types of names and for sound combinations can provide a potential trajectory for a name. And this brings us back to Rebecca. L sees the popularity of Rebecca as a reflection of consistent popularity for Old Testament names (Ruth, Judith, Deborah, Sarah), working together with the popularity of the -a ending and media influences (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and characters in Tom Sawyer, Ivanhoe, and Sounder, among others). These factors come together with the replacement effect, whereby new choices trend in and others trend out—Rebecca enjoyed a surge of popularity as Deborah was waning, one Old Testament name taking the place of another. L’s distinction of external and internal factors is nicely illustrated with his discussion of the name Monica in Ch. 9. He notes that it is difficult to predict what the effect of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair will be on the name. The result depends on the trajectory of the name before it became especially newsworthy—whether it was trending more popular...