By Aysha ImtiazFeatures correspondent
Getty ImagesUncommon baby names are rising across the globe, even in more traditional societies. Why are parents increasingly determined to make children's names ‘unique’?
My first visit to Pakistan dismantled any precious notions I had about my name’s uniqueness. While a rare curiosity in California, here, it seemed I met an Aysha, Ayesha or Aisha at every corner.
“It’s like you opened a baby name book and didn’t even look past ‘A’,” I’d tell my parents, vowing that when I had kids, I’d choose something out-of-this-world. And so I did, naming my daughter Sidrat-ul-Muntaha, after an enigmatic lote tree believed to mark the utmost boundary in the seventh heaven – literally the point of extremity none can pass.
Baby naming is an emotionally charged process. Parents worry about the long-term impact of a child’s name, and feel they need to do the best job at setting up a child for success. That’s because we know names matter; our given name forges our identity, influences name stereotypes, may dictate the types of jobs we pursue and even predict career achievements.
The trends around how parents choose names for their children are a product of our evolving cultures; they shift as aspirations for children shift. Research shows today’s rising popularity of unique baby names reflects a move from collectivism to individualistic societies, and provides important contextual clues about whom parents want their children to be. Globally, it seems, parents increasingly value unique names to help children stand out, instead of fit in.
From tradition to expression
In previous centuries, tradition-driven name conformity was the presiding impulse, explains Laura Wattenberg, founder of namerology.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard.
“Parents simply did what had always been done,” she says, pointing out that in England, John and William, for example, were top boy names from the 1200s to 1930s. “According to [statistics] compiled by economist Douglas Galbi, in the 1600s, the top three names for boys and girls accounted for fully half of [England’s] population,” she explains.
This is because naming conventions were founded in religious and ancestral ties. For example, scriptural names were popular, and English Puritans sometimes named their children after moral attributes, such as Faith or Mercy.
Getty ImagesNames have increasingly become a mode of self-expression as well as a way to signal values (Credit: Getty Images)Family Tree
This story is part of BBC's Family Tree series, which examines the issues and opportunities parents, children and families face today – and how they'll shape the world tomorrow. Find more on BBC Future.
Similarly, Muslims in Arab and South Asian countries extolled religiosity. Traditional Muslim names include eminent historical figures in Islam (such as Muhammad, after the Holy Prophet PBUH, his contemporaries, the Umm-ul-Momineen or his wives – including Hazrat Aisha RA – and Islamic state caliphs). Often, names underscored religious devotion, such as any of the 99 names of Allah with the preceding word ‘Abdul’, meaning servant of. Uniquely regulated Arab naming traditions also had lineage entrenched, with names frequently prefaced by words such as ‘Bint-e-’ (daughter of), ‘Umm-e-’ (mother of), ‘Abu’ (father of) or ‘Ibn’ (son of).
Depending on the pace at which different regions developed, not all these traditions endured. Weakening cultural ties and more mobile populations around the Industrial Revolution made young parents’ choices less dictated by extended family and local customs in the Western world, explains Wattenberg. “Names increasingly became a mode of self-expression… the whole culture moved toward greater celebration of personal freedom and individuality.”
Prior research has established the steady decrease in common names in the US from the 1950s, especially from 1983, and a recent macro-level study analysing 348 million American baby names across 137 years (1880 to 2017) showed Baby Boomers increased the number of novel names per thousand people four-fold for boys and 2.75 times for girls.
“The Baby Boomers were the first parents who wanted to be cool, and who wanted their children to be cool as well,” says Pamela Redmond, whose 1988 book Beyond Jennifer & Jason examined the cohort as the first generation to reject many of the ethnic and religious naming conventions of the past.
And with an amplified desire for distinctiveness thanks to the rise of the internet in the 1990s, millennials took it a step further. “[These parents] became used to the model of a username – your unique identifier in a social system,” says Wattenberg. “Parents would type a full name they were considering into a search engine and worry because it was ‘taken’. The 1990s also brought a new, surprisingly powerful wrinkle: baby name statistics … Annual rankings of popular names made people feel competitive. But instead of wanting to be number one, everybody wanted to avoid the top of the charts.”
Today, parents signal their style and values with names, explains Redmond, who is also the CEO of Nameberry, a name-consulting business that provides parents with guidance on how to choose a new name. “We hear a lot of parents saying they want to give their sons gender-neutral names to signal feminist values, or honour family in a way that’s in step with current styles – so grandpa Arthur may get honoured by giving your son the middle name Bear, Arthur’s meaning.”
‘A valid indicator of individualism’
Even Japan, which has been a traditional, collectivist society for centuries, is showing a shift away from naming traditions. According to a 2021 study analysing 8,000 baby names between 2004 and 2018, the rate of unique names is increasing in Japan – and it’s an indicator of rising individualism.
Study author Yuji Ogihara, from the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Tokyo University of Science, defined ‘unique names’ as ones with low frequency (one per 1,000 names) among the baby cohort. The names didn’t necessarily sound different to more common ones; complexity in Japanese names (stemming from the use of Chinese characters with multiple readings) means uniqueness can be attained in different ways. For example, one name can have multiple different readings — at least 18 for the boy’s name 大翔, which can be read as Hiroto, Daisho and Sora amongst others, and 14 for the girl’s name 結愛, like Yua, Yunari or Meia.
The Baby Boomers were the first parents who wanted to be cool, and who wanted their children to be cool as well – Pamela RedmondSo, parents might choose unique variations of a name by abbreviating common readings of Chinese characters, choosing less common characters or reading them with foreign pronunciation corresponding to semantic meaning. For instance, 月 (meaning ‘moon’) is usually read as ‘tsuki’ or ‘zuki’, but is uniquely read ‘runa’, corresponding to the Latin word ‘luna’ for moon, explains Ogihara.
“The index of baby names has been confirmed to be a valid indicator of individualism,” he continues. “Empirical evidence shows that common names are less frequently given to babies in more individualistic nations”, such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Noticing the paucity of similar research in Japan, his work seeks to address the phenomenon in more than an anecdotal context and root it in societal shifts. In other research, Ogihara contextualised this trend as part of other 'indices of individualism', such as Japan’s rising marriage-to-divorce ratio, and the decrease in three-generation households over 60 years.
Overall, the trend of parents reconceptualising interpretation, pronunciation or spelling to seek novelty in names while staying relatively within the ambit of the predominant naming conventions is a powerful impulse. In Pakistan, for example, while religiosity still prevails, more acts of worship are standing in as names, such as Azaan (call to prayer) or Ayat (a Quranic verse), instead of historically important names of the prophets, suggesting that parents are thinking more laterally to find names that are still religious, but not common.
In Japan, Yukiko Uchida, professor of social and cultural psychology at Kyoto University, Japan, roots the rise of more unusual names in multiple factors that eroded people’s trust in a collective society. She cites Japan's economic decline, debate over demographic issues and the aging population, and the emergence of problems such as social withdrawal and NEETs [individuals Not in Education, Employment or Training]. This, she says, led to a sense that people increasingly had to “survive with their own uniqueness, not rely on traditional group belongingness”.
Getty ImagesAlthough some parents have a sense that giving a child a unique name will set them apart or lead them to success, that's not always the case (Credit: Getty Images)Studies from China also show unique baby names are one of many ways to fulfil rising NFU (Need For Uniqueness), which is a product of increasing autonomy and freedom, paired with declining perceived importance of traditional Chinese cultural practices and collectivism.
Additionally, research around the rate at which unique baby girl names are rising in Japan gives insight into parental aspirations. One of Ogihara’s most compelling findings is that gender is a factor in cultural naming practises; in Japan, unique names have increased more rapidly for girls than boys. The Chinese NFU study, meanwhile, revealed girl names were more unique than boy names at one point in time, a finding consistent with prior research revealing girls were less likely to receive popular names. Whether the gender difference is measured at one point in time or mapped out as a rate of increase, in the context of traditionally conformist cultures such as China and Japan, it represents a quiet hope of parents for their daughters to be more unique than their sons.
Previously, parents in Japan may have named their daughters to conform and be “interdependent, ordinary and concerned with group harmony to fit into society”, explains Ogihara. Now, “more parents hope for their daughters [to] become more independent, unique and autonomous to fit into changing societal norms and expectations. Thus, it’s assumed they [give them more] unique names”.
Dominant parenting aspirations
As these trends play out, should we expect a continuing boom of original, uncommon names?
Uchida predicts that in Japan, the trend towards unusual names will ultimately hit a ceiling. After all, there’s a limit to the number of kanji (characters) that can be used in names, she points out, and social stigmas do persist.
Popular means well-liked – and highly distinctive names can be polarising – Laura Wattenberg“After the increase in the number of ‘kira-kira’ names (eccentric and unique names) in Japan, a stigma was attached… such as ‘coming from a low class’. Conversely, names that are too traditional tend to be avoided because of being ‘old-fashioned’, so I think there will be a continuing [but not increasing] trend in favour of names that are reasonably stylish and moderately unique.”
And chasing unique names may not always be the answer or ticket to success parents want it to be, anyway. “Parents have the instinct that choosing a distinctive name will give their child an advantage in life. It’s a loving impulse, but in practical terms it’s not clear that it works that way,” says Wattenberg, because after all, “Popular means well-liked – and highly distinctive names can be polarising. People may point to successful celebrities with unusual names, but for every Madonna and Beyoncé there’s a Michael Jackson, Emma Thompson, Sam Smith and Elizabeth Taylor,” she concludes.
Ultimately, for parents, giving a child a name is an act of love, influenced both by personal dreams and cultural transmission of values. “Parents come to us for help in finding a name that's tailored perfectly to them, more than one that's different from anyone else,” says Redmond.
Uchida agrees. “Rather than ‘standing out’ in a group or ‘becoming a star’, I think it’s a more modest desire for their kids to live their own life.”
Aysha Imtiaz is a freelance journalist and elementary school language arts teacher in Karachi, Pakistan.
BBC in other languagesInnovationncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o67CZ5qopV%2BsvLO3y6KdnmeRp8Gqr8ueZmtoYmd9dHyRZq6hsV2qu6S7zKamp2WSlq%2B6ec2apJ6rXZa%2FpnnSrqmgoZ6c