American Name Society January 7, 2007

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Toby Nicholson
5 years ago
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Birth Michael Jenkins, Tristan Roney, James Wuehler, Scott Irvine, Beate Kehl, Jessica Hancock,

1 A Cross Cultural Comparison of Four Gnerations of American, Brazilian, French, and German Male and Female First Names Categorized According to Gender, Decade of Birth, and Geo-Location of Birth Michael Jenkins, Tristan Roney, James Wuehler, Scott Irvine, Beate Kehl, Jessica Hancock, Leslie Koenen, Deryle Lonsdale, Matthew Spackman and Bruce Brown American Name Society January 7, 2007

2 Design The names and corresponding information were acquired through the combination of the following resources: Four Generation Genealogy Sheets of 7 Undergraduate Students Four Generation Genealogy Sheets of several native Germans The website familysearch.org Families and Friends

3 Design A reduced list of non-redundant first names for both male and female names were produced with approximately 50 names per gender for each nation. Respondents rated each of these names on a set of seven adjective pairs: Informal/formal Old-fashioned/modern Unfamiliar/familiar Unusual/popular Undistinguished/distinguished Unattractive/attractive

4 Design Our previous intent was to determine the rater accuracy of identification of gender, location, and decade of birth. Our current intent is to find out how the subjective properties of given names are compared according to the gender, birth geo-location, and birth decade associated with each name for the four national groups (USA, Brazil, France, and Germany)

5 Scatter plot for the Correlation between Actual Decade and Judged Decade on the 45 Most Common American Women s Names r = r 2 = Half Signal and Half Noise

6 Scatter plot for the Correlation between Actual Decade and Judged Decade on the 48 Most Common Women s Names r = r 2 = One Fourth Signal and Three Fourths Noise

7 Lens Model Analysis of Adequacy of Adjective Ratings of Names in Accounting for Decade Identification Accuracy r for male mediated unexplained r for female mediated unexplained Male Lens Model Stats Female Lens Model Stats

8 distinguished formal complex attractive popular familiar modern

9 Elpha Florence Elva Elinor Edith Edna Elsie Emma Eva Emily Ella Flossie

10 Gender comparisons for combined American data Results American male names on the whole are rated above the midpoint of the scale (4.00) on formal and distinguished, with Female names lower on these. Both male and female names are above the midpoint on familiar Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Familiar Modern Female Male

11 Gender comparisons for combined German data. Results German names, both male and female, are seen (by Germans) as more complex and formal than American names (by Americans). American names are seen as more familiar. 4 3 Male Female Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Familiar Modern

12 Decade comparisons for American female data. Results At the top right, the dark blue profile is 1820, the tan one is 1970, and the teal profile that is high on both left and right is At the bottom right, the sky blue profile is 1850 and the medium blue one is Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Familiar Modern

13 Decade comparisons for American male data. Results At the top right, the medium blue profile is 1990, the tan one is 1970, and the dotted profile below them is At the bottom right, the sky blue profile is 1910 and the yellow one is Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Familiar Modern

14 Decade comparisons for combined German data. Results Complex Formal 1980 At the top right, the pink profile is 1800, the turquoise one is Similar to the American data, both recent names and also early 19 th century ones are seen as popular, familiar, and modern. German names from 1980 are low on complex, formal, and distinguished. Distinguished Attractive 1960 Popular 1870 Familiar 1800 Modern d1790 d1800 d1810 d1820 d1830 d1840 d1850 d1860 d1870 d1880 d1890 d1900 d1910 d1920 d1930 d1940 d1950

15 Location comparisons for combined American data. Results other pacific coast 5.00 northwest 4.00 northeast At the top right, the blue profile is the pacific coast and the maroon profile is the northwest. The upper left teal colored profile is other, and the purple profile at the bottom left is the northeast Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Familiar Modern

16 Location comparisons for combined German data. Results Names from Bavaria (Bayern), Hamburg, and Meckl-Schwerin are rated as relatively high on the attractive/popular/familiar adjectives. Names from Westfale have a somewhat lower profile across all seven adjectives BadenW Bayern Brandenb Meckl-Schwerin Bayern Hamburg Bremervo Hamburg Hessen Complex Formal Distinguished Attractive Popular Westfale Familiar Modern MecklSch Neidersa NordrWes Potsdam Rhinelan Schleswi Westfale Other Foreign

17 Discussion Names are often cyclic Names of grandparents are often come back into popularity. In the 1980s it seems that there was in Germany, an increase in modern, often foreign, names. Knowledge of how names cycle through the generations and the relative location of names in the semantic spaces of persons born in different decades may help in understanding comparative naming practices in various nations.

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