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~ Names with an Australian Bias of Democratic Temper

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Tag Archives: name studies

Names at Work: Name News From the World of Business and Employment

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ Comments Off on Names at Work: Name News From the World of Business and Employment

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name studies

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Name Blind CVs
Numerous studies demonstrate that certain names are more likely to be chosen for a job than others. Not only is it harder to get a job if your name isn’t Anglo-Saxon, but there is a preference for names that are common and easy to pronounce.

Because of this unconscious name bias, several major public and private employers in the UK signed a pledge last year to remove applicants’ names from CVs, and this applies to universities as well. This year, the scheme is being trialled in Victoria, which may also remove gender, age, and location from applications. Taking part is voluntary, and so far WorkSafe, Victoria Police, and Westpac are among those who have signed up for it.

Big Earning Names
Employment company LiveHire looked through its data set of 70 000 profiles to see which names made the most money. The top male earners were Stuart, Donald, Gregory, William, and Kenneth, while women named Heather, Joan, Carolyn, Kerry and Megan earned the most. Meanwhile, names that were struggling financially were Ethan, Francis, Lucas, Samuel, Joshua, Beverley, Amelia, Ruby, Isabella, and Dianne.

LiveHire says these results are for fun, and don’t have any scientific basis. In most cases the high earners have names that peaked in popularity several decades ago, while the Joshuas and Rubys are still young and have not had time to establish themselves in their careers. Older struggling names are possibly more common amongst those from a lower socioeconomic background. LiveHire says there is no need to change your name in order to earn more.

The Smartest Names
Genealogy website Moose Roots collected almost 15 000 names of great philosophers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, inventors, artists, and composers to identify their most common first names.

The top names of genius men were John, Robert, William, Charles, David, James, Richard, Johann, George, Paul, Thomas, Peter, and Joseph (the Beatles all had four fab genius names!). The smartest women were Mary, Elizabeth, Maria, Anne, Margaret, Susan, Ruth, Anna, Alice, Dorothy, Jane, Helen, and Charlotte.

Far from demonstrating that these names are necessary for genius, they just show the most common names over time, with names such as John, William, Mary, and Elizabeth being highly popular for centuries. I fully endorse naming your child after a wonderful namesake if you want to, but think choosing one with a more unusual name, such as Linus or Octavia, would be a lot more distinctive.

The Most Successful Names
Professor Albert Mehrabian from the University of California, has written a book called The Baby Name Report Card, based on extensive surveys of how people perceive names (or how they perceived them in 2002 anyway).

People thought the most successful-sounding women’s names were Jacqueline, Morgan, Elizabeth, Katherine, Victoria, Lauraine, Susan, Catherine, Kate, and Madeleine, and the most successful men’s names were Steven, Ross, Christopher, James, Robert, David, Kenneth, Parker, Thomas, and Madison. Who were these people who thought Madison seemed like a successful man, rather than a 10-year-old girl?

Names that people thought were bound for failure were Wilma, Weeza, Virgie, Trixie, Tina, Swoosie, Suzee, Soosie, Sissy, and Mush for women, and Rufus, Rude, Butch, Alfie, Gary, Normee, Bud, Petie, and Phonso. A definite prejudice against short forms and names nobody has ever heard of can be detected.

There’s nothing wrong with choosing a baby name that a lot of other people like, but the crowd tends to be very conservative, and somewhat behind the trends.

Brand Names – in Line with Baby Names?
Research on brand names showed that in the 1970s and ’80s the letter K was a favourite for leading brand names, such as Kellogs, Kit-Kat, Kodak, Kmart, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. K stood out as memorable, because it is a plosive sound (like B, hard C, D, G, P, and T), and looks distinctive. However, it turns out that there are trends in brand names as well.

New research shows that the most common letters for the top companies in the Fortune 500 begin with A (such as Apple and American Express) and J (such as JP Morgan and Johnson & Johnson). This correlates with the most popular baby names of a few years ago, where names such as Alexander, Amelia, James, and Jasmine were the most common.

If brand names and baby names do come into fashion at the same time, not only does it explain why Kevin and Kristen flourished at the same time as Kodak and Kmart, but it suggests that leading brands in the near future will begin with A, E, J, K, and L – the most common initials of popular baby names last year.

POLL RESULTS
77% of people were broadly in favour of names being removed from the CV of job applicants, with 23% thinking it was a great idea, and 26% thinking it didn’t go far enough, and that all identifying information should be removed as well. 28% were in favour theoretically, but thought it would be impractical to implement. 18% didn’t think such measures were necessary, and 5% weren’t sure what to think.

Royal Baby Meltdown, Name Discrimination, and Other Name Stories in the News

11 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bogan names, classic baby names, creative names, Essential Baby, famous namesakes, Kidspot, locational names, name studies, royal baby names

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Royal Baby 2.0
Yes, it’s another baby expected by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, due in April next year. The Internet goes wild, bookies make billions, name bloggers all collapse from guessing until our brains explode. So far, punters are gunning for a brown-haired girl, and the most popular names for the prince or princess, younger sibling to George, are James for a boy, and Elizabeth for a girl.

I am very sceptical of an Elizabeth, as the queen has apparently made it clear she is not interested in having a namesake (royal babies with Elizabeth as their middle name are supposedly named after the queen’s mother, not Elizabeth II). To me, George and James are too similar-sounding as brothers, and surely the heir to the throne needs a distinctive name, if only for publicity purposes? However, the Duke and Duchess may not agree with my name advice.

You can read plenty of baby name predictions online (most of them are just recycling their guesses for Prince George, with the name George removed). I won’t be doing anything in regard to the name until much closer to the royal birth, as I think it is far too early. They aren’t even at the twelve-week mark yet, and the duchess is ill with severe morning sickness. Give them some space, people!

Last time, my bizarre method of tracking royal baby names turned out to be unexpectedly successful (for a boy, anyway; it might have been totally wrong if George had been a girl), but next time we might try something completely different, and see how that goes.

Utter Drivel Bogan
Kidspot have brought out a rather cringe-making article on “bogan baby names”, which they pretend is all in good fun.

Clare asked on her Scoop page whether this was as controversial or potentially offensive as calling names “chavvy”? I would say, yes Clare, it is: it’s like an article about chavvy names, redneck names, ghetto names, and the like. Despite protestations to the contrary, articles like these are intended to be offensive, and they certainly seem mean-spirited.

Apart from being copied from other sources, the article has some real clangers, such as saying Zaiden is “made up”, when it’s an elaboration of the Arabic name Zaid. Or listing the name Princ’ess, which isn’t even allowed in Australia.

Jorja Fights Back!
One person who took exception to Kidspot’s article was Jorja Orreal, whose name happened to feature on the list of “bogan names”. She loves her name, and her mother says it is not bogan at all, but very pretty. Jorja was named thus because her mum noticed that best-selling author Sidney Sheldon dedicated several of his novels to his wife at the time, actress Jorja Curtright. As she points out, how could the man behind I Dream of Jeannie possibly be associated with something in poor taste?

Jorja believes her name actually looks like a name, rather than Georgia, which is also a country and an American state, and seems more feminine. Unfortunately, she then loses every bit of my sympathy she might have mustered by going on to trash the names that she thinks are really bogan. Thanks to her intervention, my comments on the Kidspot article were much less severe.

Reach the Top of Your Game with a Creative Name
Almost everyone agrees: “creative” names are a terrible idea. Received wisdom is that it’s better to be a Chloe than a Kloey, James looks more professional than Jaymezz, and a traditional name like Elizabeth or William will gain greater esteem than a modern concoction like Neveah or Latrell. Essential Baby examines this idea by seeing if it stands up in the modern workplace.

In fact, there’s a lot to be said for “creative” names, perhaps most of all that they tend to be memorable, and can also be a great ice-breaker. Interviews with a couple of creatively-named people in business demonstrate that their names have been an asset to their careers. It seemed to me that their attitude to their names was really important, because they expected people to have trouble spelling their names, and were relaxed about the idea that people might find them amusing. Could those people skills have been gained through constant negotiations with others over their names?

Paul Barbaro, a spokesman from a recruitment agency, believes the idea that a “classic” baby name has prestige is an old and outdated one, and that people today are much less judgemental, being used to a wide variety of names (someone alert Kidspot to this valuable information!). He suggests that unusual names are now the norm, and that it can be helpful to have a name that is a little different, or globally recognised.

However, language expert Roly Sussex, from the University of Queensland, appears to be unconvinced. He can’t think of many people in public life with an unusual name, and thinks it would be far better to have a name that everyone knows how to spell and pronounce. But perhaps his attitudes really are outdated.

Should You Change Your “Ethnic” Name?
Roly Sussex thought that people with ethnic names were more likely to be successful if they anglicised their names, or used a nickname.

While I’m not sure if it will help you become successful in the long-term, the sad news is that it will probably help you to get a foot in the door. Researchers from the Australian National University submitted 4000 fictitious CVs for entry level jobs, and found that people with a Middle Eastern name need to submit 64% more applications that one with an Anglo-Saxon name to gain a job interview, while those with Chinese names need to submit 68% more applications, Indigenous names 35% more, and Italian names 12% more.

The study also showed that name discrimination was not evenly applied, and there could be differences when other factors were changed. For example, men of all minority ethnic groupings found it harder to get interviews than women; waitstaff and data entry jobs were the most likely to discriminate against ethnic minority males.

The city the person is in makes a difference too, with Sydney the most biased city against people with ethnic names – a Chinese person in Brisbane must submit 57% more applications, while in Sydney, it is a whopping 92% more. There was no evidence of discrimination against Italians in Melbourne, which has a relatively high Italian population.

Middle Eastern job seekers fared better when they applied for jobs with a non-Anglo employer or in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. Interestingly, while a Chinese employer was much more likely to give someone with a Chinese name a callback, Italian employers were significantly less likely to offer someone with an Italian name an interview!

The entry level job that appeared to have the least amount of discrimination was customer service: your name doesn’t seem to make much difference when it comes to getting an interview in this field.

And there is some good news to go along with this rather depressing research. A study conducted by the University of Melbourne this year found that ethnic minority jobseekers were much more discriminated against during the application process than they were once they had actually secured a position.

Some people who did use an English name or an English nickname to find work felt comfortable enough to revert back to their real name in the workplace, and some were even encouraged to do so by their fellow colleagues. So if you write Rick on your resume, it doesn’t mean you can’t become Rashid again once you have been successful in your interview.

How to Dot Com Your Baby Name, and Other Name Stories in the News

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Awesome Baby Name, domain names, Facebook, Game of Thrones names, name data, name meaning, name studies, name trends, nicknames, popular names, royal baby names, Twitter

Modern Baby Names

Mastering Your Baby’s Domain
Baby names in the digital age have become so complicated that some parents now make sure their child has their own e-mail account, Twitter handle, Facebook page, and website before they are born.

And since it gets frustrating finding the baby name you want to register has already been taken, you can do a sort of “reverse look up”, where you use a website that will tell you which names are still available. Such a website is the misleadingly-titled Awesome Baby Name, which suggests names based on domain availability.

Naturally I had to give this a try, and it’s easy enough. You type in your surname, and say you want a boy, girl, or “whatever” name, and receive a list of ten names that haven’t been taken yet. If you don’t like the ten they offer (and you probably won’t), they offer to sell you another 100 names for $3. You would be crazy to actually make this purchase, since every time you use it you get another ten names, and by simply clicking it again and again would soon find 100 names all on your own for free.

The site promises to find you the “very best matches” possible, but in fact it’s just a random list of names that may or may not sound even half decent when matched with your surname. The names have a very American bias – I was offered quite a lot of Hispanic names, and names currently trending in the US, like Jayceon. I’m not sure how the algorithm works, but I tried it with fifteen very different surnames, and each one offered the name Colton.

I was quite pleased by most of the boys names I was offered (except Colton, a name I now utterly loathe from having it thrust on me so many times): Alistair, Axel, Declan, Jude, Matthias, Maximilian, and Thaddeus seemed nice. Girls names were uniformly terrible. They were either dated, like Megan and Julie, very modern like Kyra and Brylee, or variant spellings, like Kaitlynne and Brooklynn. Maybe all the good girls’ names are already taken?

The “whatever” button is a complete waste of time: it doesn’t give you unisex options, as I thought, but just five girls names and five boys names.

Our surname is relatively uncommon, so that almost every name could be matched with it and still not be registered, and yet I wasn’t offered even one Top 100 name. Furthermore, different surnames didn’t get you a different range of names: I was offered relatively uncommon names, no matter if I said I was named Smith or Hetherington-Smitherswaithe. I wonder if the surname has been factored in at all?

The About on the page says it started as a joke, but doesn’t say whether it still is one or not, or how funny the joke turned out to be. I rate it as Mildly Amusing.

Names at Work
Could your name be holding back at work, muses Kochie’s Business Builders in Yahoo Finance? Short answer, from researchers at the University of Melbourne, is yes. They found that people with simple, easy to pronounce names had an advantage in the workplace, and would be more likely to be elected to political office.

Dr Simon Laham, from the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychology, said research findings revealed that it wasn’t the length of a name, or how “foreign” it seemed, or how unusual (or even made up) it was, but its pronounceability that made the difference.

It’s quite interesting, because we’re often told that names have to be familiar, recognisable, “non-ethnic”, or short for people to feel comfortable with them, but it seems that isn’t really that important, as long as they can intuitively guess the pronunciation. This might be something to bear in mind when choosing names.

Worried about your hard to pronounce name and how it’s ruining your career? KBB suggests using a nickname or short form of your name for easy communication, but sensibly comments that your skills and experience are far more important. An article on names which says your name is less important than who you are and what you do! Let’s hope this trend continues.

Capital, By George
There was royal baby name spotting during the royal visit in Canberra in April. The Canberra Times had a light-hearted look at a few baby Georges around town, including a George Louis, a George Middleton, and a Giorgio. The name George appears to be on the rise in the ACT, with 14 registrations in 2012 climbing to 22 in 2013. Between Prince George’s birth and his visit to Australia, 15 Georges were registered in our capital. What that means for the 2014 data is anyone’s guess.

Mothers of Dragons in the West
And those other royal names … Perth Now tells us that baby names from Game of Thrones are rising in Western Australia. Unfortunately, no actual data to support this plausible theory, but a couple of anecdotes instead. Fascinated by the mother who chose Khaleesi for her daughter in 2012, because “it had some sort of history”. I guess almost every name has some sort of history … in this case, a purely imaginary one! The meaning of “queen” was also a drawcard.

Names All Over the World
The Essential Baby website has got a little map of popular names from around the world. It doesn’t cover every country, but it does look at several regions. Africa and the Middle East are completely missing (I guess they have bigger issues than putting out birth name data). Worth a look to see how different the Top Tens are around the world.

The Names With the Best and Worst Credit Rating

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

name studies

Know_Your_Credit_Score

Australian credit reporting company Veda has analysed the credit scores of 4.6 million people, and tells us which names are associated with the highest and lowest ratings of credit worthiness in each age group.

Gen Y

Best: Brendan, Wei, Georgia, Ying

Worst: Harley, Kayla, Skye

Gen X

Best: Lachlan, Murray, Ying, Clare

Worst: Mohamed, Tammy, Ali

Baby Boomers

Best: Brendan, Penelope, Gillian, Ross

Worst: Jose, Henry, Gloria, Marlene

Silent Generation

Best: Trevor, Pauline

Worst: Arthur, Valeria

I thought this report was more interesting than usual, because it divided people by age, so we could see names judged within their peer group.

People called Brendan and Ying certainly seem to be very financially responsible, as these are both top-rated names of two generations!

Why Your Child Will Hate Their Name

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

baby name advice, baby name books, choosing baby names, classic names, created names, dated names, Google, honouring, name forums, name image, name popularity, name studies, names from television, popular names, pseudonyms

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How can I pick a name my child won’t hate?

That’s the question somebody typed into a search bar, and Google knows how, ended up on my blog. Here’s the kicker: you can’t. There’s no name, no matter how tastefully chosen, that comes with a guarantee that your child won’t one day hate it to bits.

I know people with what I see as very nice names (nicer than mine, in my opinion) who hate them with a bewildering passion, while people who have what I consider very boring or even ugly names are deeply grateful to their parents for choosing them. We all have different tastes.

I do know quite a few people who hate their names, and if you hang out on name forums, you don’t have to look hard to find others who have become disgruntled with their names. While everyone has their own personal quirks, over the years I have noticed a few things they tended to have in common.

These are often not the things that baby name articles warn you about. For example, a popular belief is that a “weird name” is sure to be hated by the bearer, who will be teased in the playground and come to loathe their name, their parents, and probably the whole world.

I haven’t noticed this to be the case, with most owners of unusual names enjoying, or at least coming to terms with them. I have never met anyone with an unusual name who legally changed it to something more mundane, even those who professed to find it a bit of a pain sometimes. At most, they adopted a pseudonym when booking restaurants.

Another piece of advice often handed out is that a “bizarre” name spelling will be such a nuisance that the bearer will undoubtedly wish that their parents had gone with something more traditional. Again, I don’t find that to be generally true. Some people with unusually spelled names loathe them, while others are delighted by them.

I know someone with a very unintuitive name spelling (think Veeruyniiikkarh for Veronica), and she loves that every letter in her name was individually chosen by her mum, with each one having a specific personal meaning. I thought it would be the most tremendous nuisance to have to spell out every time, but she assures me that she doesn’t mind at all. “It makes me feel special that my name gets so much attention”. For her, holding up queues is an ego-massage.

As I can’t tell you how to pick a name your child won’t hate, I thought I would least explain why they may end up hating it.

They hate themselves

Research has shown that people with high self-esteem tend to like their own name, and the higher their sense of self-worth, the more they liked their name. That suggests that people who dislike their own name may suffer from self-esteem issues.

You might assume that someone who dislikes their name would arrogantly think it not good enough for them, but sometimes it seems to be the other way around – they don’t think they are good enough for their names.

“It’s a popular girl name, it’s just not me”; “It’s too pretty for me carry it off”; or the most tragic I heard, “It sounds like the name of a happy normal person”.

To give your child the best chance of liking their name, make sure that they have high self-esteem. Convince them that they are pretty, popular, happy and normal enough for their name.

Their name is going downhill

A lot of parents worry about popularity; nearly always that the name is “too popular” to use, or is going to be too popular in the future.

However, I’ve noticed that the majority of people who dislike their names were given names that were either falling in popularity when they were born, or hitting their peak, so that they had begun falling by the time they started school.

Not only that, but the level of dislike appears to correlate with how steeply the name rose and fell. Names with a very obvious peak and trough, dating them to a particular era, seem to be the most disliked.

It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the most popular names that are disliked so much as those which display this pattern. For example, Sarah was the #1 name of the 1980s, yet I rarely hear Sarahs complain bitterly about their name. Could that be because Sarah is a classic which is still in the Top 40, so we don’t think of it as a “typical 1980s name”?

I don’t often hear anyone identify the trajectory of their name’s popularity as the reason for their dissatisfaction. They all have what appear to be good reasons for their dislike: it’s unattractive, it’s boring, it doesn’t suit them. Yet somehow it seems to be names falling in popularity which are perceived as ugly, boring, and not suiting their owners.

People given names that were already dated and out of style at the time of their birth (“old people” names) usually say that they hated their name as a child, but now they’re grown up, they appreciate it’s different from the usual names of their generation.

That may because such names sometimes begin to come back into fashion when they are adults. For example, someone born in the 1980s named Florence would have had a dated name, as it peaked in the 1900s. But now it is fashionable and rising in popularity – suddenly Florence has a cool name.

I do think popularity is worth considering – but not to cross off a name because it’s hit a particular point in the charts. Of course, you can’t know how a name will perform in the future, but you can at least see how it’s doing now. Has it maintained its position over several decades? Has it suddenly “come out of nowhere”? Is it already falling steeply? This information might help you choose between different names.

They hate the reason you chose their name

If someone really loves their name, I don’t think a bad name story will seriously ruin it for them, but if someone is already lukewarm, a bad one can add insult to injury. The factors that seem to get people’s goats are a perceived randomness, casualness, or lack of thought in the way their name was selected.

When you tell your child how you chose their name, stress how important it was to you and how much you love their name. If you chose their name from a baby name book, or a TV show, for example, make sure they understand that it wasn’t just by chance you chose their name. Whatever it was that made you fall in love with the name, express it. And don’t wait until they’re a moody teen or resentful adult to share the good news – they should know from an early age how special you think their name is.

I know a lot of people who disliked their names, and were even thinking of changing them, until their parents explained how much love and care had gone into choosing it. Teenagers who thought their parents had unimaginatively picked a popular name found that they had been named after a much-loved relative. A “made up” name that seemed “random” was the result of putting together the initials of their parents’ best friends who introduced them. And sometimes just knowing it was a name their parents loved above all others was enough to reconcile someone to a name they had thought ordinary.

The bottom line: everyone wants their name to be meaningful. Show your child that theirs is.

You hate your name

In some cases, disliking names seems to run in the family. Quite a number of women I know who dislike their names tell me that their mother was also unhappy with her own name. This may be from parental modelling. Just as mothers who constantly moan about their flabby thighs tend to have daughters with body image problems, it could be that mothers who dislike their name unconsciously send the message to their children to focus on anything about their name that fails to please.

If you hate your own name, make peace with it. Don’t try to work out your own issues when choosing your child’s name. So many parents seem to think that because they hated being one of a dozen in their class their child’s name must be rare, or because they hated their nickname their child needs a “nickname proof” name.

It’s well intentioned, but the trouble is that you’ve made your child’s name story all about you. When you tell your child how you chose their name, the story shouldn’t include information about how you felt about your name. Don’t use your child’s name as an opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past.

They hate you

In rare but distressing cases, people reject their names because their relationship with their parents irretrievably breaks down. It’s not uncommon for them to change their names in order to signal a complete break from their family background, and it can also be so their parents can’t easily locate them.

I don’t think this is worth worrying about, because if it occurs, their name isn’t really the issue, and is the least of your problems.

POSTSCRIPT: I should add that most of my observations in regard to name dislike relate to women. It isn’t that I don’t know any men who dislike their names – I know a fair few who hated their name enough to legally change it, and I’ve read a lot of articles written by men on how much they dislike their name.

However, women and girls do seem to more openly express their feelings about their names, and it’s possible that they have subtler emotions toward their name, or are more likely to be analytical about them. Perhaps women are more likely to be “fussy” about their names than men. Whatever the reason, it seems to be easier to gather information about their feelings towards their names (at least for me).

POLL RESULTS
79% of people responding to the poll were generally satisfied with their name. 33% liked their name, 19% loved their name, 18% weren’t mad about their name, but could live with it, and 9% said that they used to dislike their name, but had changed their mind and now felt positive towards it.

However, 12% of people did hate their name, while 9% thought that hate was too strong a word to use, but they didn’t really like their names either.

The good news is, most of us have names that we are content with, and around 10% of people who don’t like their name will change their minds.

(Picture from Naver)

Famous Names: Muhammad

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Arabic names, celebrity baby names, famous namesakes, name data, name discrimination, name history, name meaning, name popularity, name studies, NSW name popularity, popular names, saints names, UK name popularity, US name popularity

PMUZ058

The name Muhammad joined the national Top 100 last year, which was also its first time in the New South Wales Top 100. However, data from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages shows that, if you combine all the variant spellings, Muhammad has been in the Top 25 of the state since 2010, giving it a similar level of popularity to Xavier, Jayden, Mason and Charlie.

This trend looks likely to continue, with 161 baby boys named Muhammad, Mohamed, Muhammed or Mohammed already born in the state this year between January and August.

Muslin leader and community spokesperson, Keysar Trad, who has a son named Muhammad, believes that these statistics are a sign that Australian Muslims are becoming more confident in giving their children Islamic names.

He thinks that they show a greater acceptance of Muslim names in the wider community, and a healthier connection with their religion amongst Muslims.

Mr Trad says that religious names not only allow an expression of devotion to God, but allow parents to reclaim an aspect of their culture.

By choosing the name of a significant religious figure, they hope that their child will share in the good qualities of that name, and perhaps be inspired to learn more about it when they get older.

“You think that one day, maybe they will read up on the significance on the name,” he said.

The prophet Muhammad’s full name was Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim, and he was a 6th century leader from Mecca in Arabia who unified his country under Islam.

According to his own testimony, at the age of 40, he began receiving revelations from God through the archangel Gabriel, and a few years later began preaching these revelations. He proclaimed that “God is One”, and that complete surrender to Him was the only acceptable path to God – the word Islam itself means “surrender”. Muhammad declared himself a prophet, and a messenger sent by God.

The revelations which Muhammad reported receiving until his death in his early 60s form the Quran, which is the basis of the Muslim religion, and regarded by Muslims as the Word of God.

The name Muhammad means “praised, praiseworthy” in Arabic, and it is a very popular name amongst Muslims. It has a variety of transliterations and spellings because of the different languages used in the Islamic world.

It is believed that Muhammad, counting all variant spellings, is the most common personal name in the world, with an estimated 150 million men and boys bearing the name. It is the most common boys name in England/Wales, and in the United States, if all the spelling variants were combined, Muhammad would be in the Top 200 and rising, with a similar popularity to Silas, Maddox, Weston and Greyson.

There is a popular theory that names which are too “ethnic” sounding should be avoided lest they lead to discrimination, and you can find studies which show that in many cases, it can be harder to get a job interview if the name on your resume looks “foreign” (although this Australian study showed it depended where you lived and what kind of “ethnic” your name was).

Kayser Trad acknowledged that there have been cases where people with an obviously Muslim name had trouble getting a job, but he doesn’t believe the answer is to “go into hiding”, or change your name to Charlie Edwards to get an interview.

It also occurs to me that this theory assumes that all businesses are owned and all industries are controlled by people from an Anglo background, and that all people in charge of such businesses would prefer not to employ non-Anglo people. That just isn’t true.

I watched the daily business report on television yesterday, and noted that of the half dozen spokespeople from major businesses interviewed, four of them had ethnic names, including two with Arabic names. Furthermore, many businesses are owned by people from non-Anglo heritages, and having a Muslim name may prove an advantage in some areas.

Businesses in areas with a strong migrant community could prefer to hire people from a similar background for greater rapport with and understanding of their customer base, and your name shouldn’t be any disadvantage in the public and non-profit sector – about 25% of the workforce, and in some areas, up to 80% of the workforce.

Muhammad joining the Top 100 is a watershed in Australian society, but it should also be remembered that the majority of names on the boys Top 100 are of Jewish or Christian origin, with many names of pagan origin only coming into popular use through saints, such as George and Aidan, and even surname names developing because of saints, such as Mitchell and Jackson.

If you are interested how names of other religious figures fare in New South Wales, during the 2000s more than one baby each year, but less than six, were named Jesus or Moses, and in the same period most years saw about 7-11 babies named Abraham. By July this year, 10 babies named Krishna had been born. Hmm, this could be another growth area …

POLL RESULT: Muhammad received an approval rating of 49%. 27% of people thought the name Muhammad connected its bearer to his culture, and as a result, 24% believed the name was only suitable for Muslims. 14% saw the name as “too Muslim”.   

(The picture shows a 17th century Ottoman calligraphy panel by Hafiz Osman, describing the physical appearance of the prophet Muhammad; it is not permitted to show images of Muhammad in Islam)

Rich List Baby Names

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

classic names, famous namesakes, name popularity, name studies, popular names, rare names

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BRW magazine puts out the Rich 200 list of the top 200 richest people in Australia each year, and has looked through all the names on their Rich List since the magazine was founded in 1984, to see which names are most common for rich people. They then suggest that parents may like to choose these names for their babies, in hopes that they will then become rich, or at least not look out of place just in case they ever do become rich.

You probably won’t be staggered to learn that the most common name on the Rich Lists was John, with fifty men of this name being included since 1984.

Top Ten Rich List Names for Boys

  • John
  • Peter
  • David
  • Michael
  • Robert
  • William
  • Ian
  • Paul
  • George
  • Andrew

Girls names were rather more problematic, since only 7% of the Rich List have been women, and only two female names have turned up more than once – Rose and Christina, of which there are just two examples of each. Despite having virtually no data to work with, they still manage to come up with a Top Ten for girls names as well. It seems to be based on simply putting the rest of them in alphabetical order.

Top Ten Rich List Names for Girls

  • Rose
  • Christina
  • Andrea
  • Angela
  • Charlotte
  • Elizabeth
  • Gina (short for Georgina)
  • Nicole
  • Penelope
  • Therese

You can probably see a major flaw in their name-your-baby-the-rich-way plan, in that the names on the boys list are classic names which have retained high levels of popularity over time.

John has never been off the Top 100, and was the #1 name from 1910 to 1940; it didn’t leave the Top Ten until the 1970s. So there are lots of rich men named John, but there are also lots of high school teachers, auto mechanics, scientists, discharged bankrupts, and murderers named John as well. It’s not so much a “rich man name” as an “everyman” name.

Even BRW admits that an unusual name will not disqualify you from wealth, because there are people on the Rich List named Ranald, Sinclair, Wolf, Brettney, and Merlin as well. (They also include Iris for some reason, although Iris is not particularly unusual even now, and was Top 100 from 1900-1940.)

John and Rose are nice names, well worth choosing if you like them, but they won’t make a difference to your child’s bank account. A name cannot magically bring wealth, and if you look at the Top Ten of the Rich 200, you can see that at least half of them inherited all, or the bulk of, their fortune.

The richest person in Australia is Gina Rinehart, who got her money, not because was named Georgina, but because her wealthy father died and left her his fortune. In other words, if you would like your children to be rich, the best thing to do is become rich yourself, and leave them all your money in your will. They will be able to inherit from you no matter what their first name is.

How did most people on the Top Ten get rich? Mining and property development. So go buy a mine, and turn it into a block of flats, and your child is well on its way to financial security.

Names in the News

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by A.O. in Names in the News

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

created names, epithets and titles, Game of Throne names, honouring, name campaigns, name combinations, name contests, name popularity, name social groups, name studies, names from television, nicknames, popular names, sibsets, vintage names

News

Dr Benjamin Pitcher, from the University of London, analysed the most popular names in the UK, Australia, and the US, and found that boys names are more likely to have “large” vowel sounds, while girls are more likely to have “small” vowel sounds in their names. Larger sounding vowels pull the tongue to the back of the mouth, creating more airspace and releasing lower frequency sounds, while smaller vowels force the tongue forwards and upwards, giving high pitched sounds. Examples of “large” vowels in names include Jack, Lachlan, Cooper, Noah and Tom, while “small” vowels can be found in Isabella, Olivia, Mia, Lily and Ella. Dr Pitcher says this is an example of biological evolution, but only looked at names between 2001 and 2010, which doesn’t seem like enough of a time period to evolve in. I was interested to see that a Dr Pitcher would end up studying pitch, and that his first name, Benjamin, tends towards the more feminine vowels.

More studies into gender differences in names show that in English-speaking countries, girls names tend to be longer, to have unstressed “weak” initial syllables, end on a vowel sound, and to have more vowel sounds generally. It is thus supposed that girls names are more “decorative”, and boys names more “functional”. I wonder what they think in non-English countries, because in India, Arabic countries, and Polynesian islands, male names are often just as long and vowel-heavy as female ones, and I’m sure they don’t think of their boys names as “weak” or “girly”. Perhaps we should we be asking ourselves why we see our girls names as “weak and decorative” – it probably says a lot more about our own attitudes than it does about their vowels. Because take away all our value judgements, and there is no real reason while a girls name like Jane is “stronger” and more “functional” than one such as Olivia or Isabella.

The invented word Khaleesi, from Game of Thrones, has the meaning of “queen” in the fictional Dothraki language, although it is a title and not a personal name. Khaleesi has been used as a baby name since the TV show aired in Australia, and it turns out that it is more popular in Queensland – 15 babies named Khaleesi have been born in Queensland so far this year, compared to 4 each in Victoria and South Australia, and 6 in New South Wales. Could it be the meaning of “queen” which unconsciously makes it more appealing to Queenslanders? Two Queensland fans of the show who chose the name for their daughter say that they couldn’t agree on any name until the first season of Game of Thrones began airing. They thought Khaleesi was a really nice name which would be suitable for an adult too, and found out the spelling from the show’s website. Makes you wonder what all these Khaleesis would be called if the books hadn’t been turned into a TV series …

The town of Busselton on Western Australia’s south-west coast has a social group for women named June, and on June 1 each year, they celebrate Happy June Day. (Because if the first of May is May Day, then obviously the first of June is June Day … right?) In existence since 2010, this year eight women named June got together for a cuppa and to find out what else they have in common. Two of the Junes were born in June (well, actually, one of them was born on May 31, but so close to midnight it was practically June). One of the Junes has four children born during the month of June, half the Junes had a mother named Mary, and two Junes have a sister named Barbara. June peaked in the 1930s at #10, and this is something cool to look forward to if you have a popular name – starting your own name group.

This year’s mission for the Junes was to see more newborn babies named June – a wish which was granted instantly, because after a friend sent her the story about June Day in the Busselton paper, Eleisha Whiston contacted the June group to tell them she named her daughter June on May 25. Baby June is named after her 83-year-old great-grandmother, who was born in June. Her brother Hugo also has a June birthday. The Happy Junes were “overwhelmed” to hear of a new June so soon. You know what? June is a lovely name. Seriously consider having a little June – no matter what the moon, or whether born at morn or afternoon, that name would be a real boon, bringing great fortune. Then every day would mean a Happy June.

Meanwhile, Dave Noonan from Hobart’s Heart 107.3 radio station became alarmed at the thought that his own name might die out, and initiated a Save Dave campaign, to convince the women of Hobart to call their sons Dave. Eventually, Matt and Melissa Moore welcomed their son at 4.33 am on July 19, and named him David Xander, to be rewarded with a newly-renovated kitchen. Melissa plans to call her son Davey as his nickname, which she finds “cuter”, making the contest seem a bit pointless.

MYTH: A “Weird” Baby Name Can Ruin Your Child’s Life

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by A.O. in Baby Name Mythbusters

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

African names, alphanumeric names, British Baby Names, celebrity baby names, created names, Dr Martin Ford, Herald Sun, Indian names, Irish names, name image, name popularity, name studies, parenting blogs, popular names, psychology of names, Radio National, rare names, US birth notices, US name data, variant spellings, Vietnamese names, Who's Who, William Shakespeare, Yiddish names

This is an idea you cannot help running across if you frequent baby name forums, attend a few parent group meetings, or just read the papers – that the bestowing of a name considered strange or highly unusual upon a child is a cruel thing to do, and has the potential to impact on their life in negative ways.

A short-lived parenting blog at the Herald Sun which was written by Cheryl Critchley asked, Are Weird Names Child Abuse? It might seem a bit extreme to suggest that calling your son Raiyybanzi is the equivalent of hitting him around the head or locking him in his room for three weeks without food, but Cheryl goes to the child psychologists for further information.

According to child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, yes, an unusual name is a form of child abuse, as it will lead to non-stop teasing in the schoolyard. Another psychologist, Dr Janet Hall, said a poor choice of name could lead to the child developing self-esteem problems. A name that others constantly question and mock is a “constant attack on your self-esteem”. It’s all sounding pretty dire for poor little Raiyybanzi.

A dim ray of light shone through when an education psychologist named Dr Helen McGrath suggested that while shy children probably won’t appreciate an unusual name, an extroverted one might enjoy the attention that it brings. She noted that unusual names do tend to change people’s perceptions, and even self-perception. However, there was no research which suggested any negative impact, and that factors such as social skills and family relationships were far more important.

The interesting thing is that Cheryl got her inspiration for the article from the names of AFL footballers she had seen in the newspapers – names such as Ayce, Jarryn, Jarrhan, Cheynee and Sharrod. These horrified her, and yet it would seem that Ayce and friends hadn’t had their lives ruined, but embarked on potentially lucrative and rewarding sporting careers. The photo of Ayce used for the article showed him looking cheerful and confident, with his self-esteem firmly intact.

This article was published a few years ago, but journalistic opinion doesn’t seem to have moved forward very much in the meantime. There’s a good reason for that – if you’ve been following the ‘Twas Ever Thus series at Elea’s blog, British Baby Names, you will see that when it comes to getting worked up over “weird” baby names, the media is pretty much churning out the same stuff they produced in the 19th century. Only the names have been changed, as the saying goes.

On Radio National a few months ago, on their popular Life Matters show, presenter Natasha Mitchell had a programme called You’ve Named Your Baby What?!. Generally light-hearted in tone, the show discussed unusual celebrity baby names (Natasha confessed she rather liked Sparrow), old-fashioned names like Mavis and Alfie, little boys just called H, and little girls named Rach’elle.

Guest Mia Freedman, who runs the successful parenting website Mamamia, while not actually accusing anyone of child abuse, opined that a strange name, especially one spelled strangely, could be a “burden” for a child. A burden in so much as they would be constantly questioned about their name – perhaps not damaging to their self-esteem, but a downright nuisance to them nonetheless.

In these sort of shows/articles, everyone is very careful to explain that when they say “unusual names”, they don’t mean names from other cultures, which to our ears may be difficult to pronounce, or sound like rude words, or appear to be on the “wrong” sex. No, these names are a wonderful sign of our diversity, and people should be proud to possess them as part of their culture, and it would be very wrong indeed to poke fun of them.

To my mind, this is the downfall of their argument, because it’s never explained why it’s not a “burden” to be named Caoilfhionn, even though that must surely involve at least as many requests to explain spelling and pronunciation as Rach’elle does. If it’s not such a terrible burden to be named Caoilfhionn, then I don’t see how Rach’elle is any heavier for a child to bear.

And if we as a society should be able to cope with Caoilfhionn, Purushottama, Oluwakanyinsola, Dudel and Phuc as names, then I don’t see why we cannot also cope with Mavis, Alfie, Sparrow, Ayce, Jarryn, Rach’elle and H. For that matter, how could anyone be confused by the spelling of the name H? Surely the strange-names-as-a-burden club should be heaping praise on H for its unburdensome simplicity? However, for some reason that never happens.

Oddly enough, Mia, who has an extremely simple and popular name, says that she needs to often correct people on the spelling and pronunciation of it. And yet, this burden doesn’t seem to have really been much bother, or held her back in life. From this I deduce that almost everyone has to explain their name at some point (“No, it’s John – J-O-H-N, not Jon – J-O-N”), and that it’s just one of those little things you have to deal with.

To befuddle the argument even further, Mia poked mild fun at “cutesy pet names” for children, singling out Jools Oliver for naming her children Poppy, Daisy, Petal and Buddy. Fun fact: Mia’s daughter is named Coco. I know: go figure.

Although these examples are not the most convincing you’ll come across, and don’t even manage to present a cogent argument, there are no lack of studies which purport to reveal the dreadful consequences of giving your child a strange name.

They tell us that your child will do worse at school, be less popular with their classmates, drop out of tertiary education, and have their resumes ignored by prospective employers (although, after doing so badly at school and flunking university, you’d think a boss would have pretty good grounds for ignoring their resume).

Furthermore, they were more likely to be diagnosed as psychotic and to end up in prison – the bitter conclusion to a life of failure and misery. After reading this terribly sad story, which seems like the stuff of nightmare and soap opera, how could a parent be so heartless as to inflict on their child any name other than one selected by the Chamber of Commerce, heads of all major universities, and a panel of psychiatrists?

However, other researchers crunched the numbers and came up with opposing results. It was noted that men with rare names were over-represented in Who’s Who, suggesting that a life of success was just as possible as one of failure for those with less common names. Other researchers noted that many children with uncommon names came from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and that once this was allowed for, there was no difference in academic outcomes that could be attributed to the person’s name.

One interesting finding by development psychologist Dr. Martin Ford is that everyone tends to attach a particular image or set of expectations to a name – up and until they confronted with a person with that name. People might say that they think of Berthas as being unattractive, but if shown the photo of a beautiful woman and told she is named Bertha, they rate the photo more or less the same as someone told the lovely woman is called Jacqueline or Christine.

In other words, Shakespeare was clearly on the money in regard to roses smelling just as sweet.

So here we have two competing theories: one is that unusual names are little more than child abuse, will damage self-esteem, prove an unnecessary burden, and be a severe handicap in regards to academic and social success. At worst, they may even send your child mad, or force them into a life of crime.

The other is that names, once attached to a real person, become almost meaningless – that what we are judged on is not our names, but our appearance, voice, grooming, hygiene, mannerisms, personality, social skills, motivations, abilities, intelligence, beliefs, income, education, job, family, friends, hobbies, home, influences, aspirations, and indeed the whole “package” that is ourselves.

I’m not sure I am completely convinced by either side – mostly because I am sceptical as to whether any of them have considered genuinely “weird” names. I feel as if they have looked at unpopular or uncommon names, or names judged to be undesirable by others, but that’s not really the same thing.

I mean come on, how sheltered must your life be to think that Ayce and Rach’elle are weird!

From what can I gather, Dr. Ford’s photo experiment was just using “outdated” names of the time like Hazel and Harriet – not only in no way weird, but by now very much back in fashion.

His original name study was done in 1984, on children who would have been born in the early 1970s. Very rare names of people born in 1972 include Atticus, Briar, Bristol, Coco, Darcey, Denzel, Emmeline, Fallon, Heaven, Jaxon, Jorja, Kourtney, Larkin, Lourdes, Marigold, Reeve, Rosamond, Sonnet, Star, Theodoric, and Wilder.

These names aren’t weird any more – some of them look pretty hip, and others seem unsurprising; a couple are even quite dull. In just forty years, a name can go from Woah, what the heck? to Meh. Maybe the rare names of today, such as Cameo and Twain, will seem equally familiar by the early 2050s.

That’s looking at US data of course, but in Australia we know that just twenty years ago Olive was a strange and awkward name to give a baby, and it is now Top 100 in Victoria, and getting there in New South Wales.

If name-weirdness is dependent on time, it is equally so on space. I know that when I look at some names on the American charts, or in American birth notices, they seem odd to me because names such as Legend, Princess, Race, Tinsley,  and Dutch are rarely or never used in Australia. Likewise, Americans look at Australian-used names like Lachlan, Jacinta, Hamish, Bronte and Zali, and think What the dealio?

A normal name can become weird just by crossing the Pacific; conversely, an American boy named Hamish who moves to Australia will blend in instantly. Fun fact: in the US, 8 baby boys were named Hamish last year.

What an individual person believes is weird seems to be almost entirely subjective. To Cheryl it’s Jarryn. To Natasha it’s Apple. To me it’s Race. To 1972 it’s Coco. To a commenter I saw on Mamamia it’s Felix (in the Top 100). To this journalist it’s Becket. To my mother it’s Madison. To you maybe it’s Hamish. Or Metallica. Or Banjo. Or Justus. Or Crew. Or Dudel.

I genuinely thought that this myth would be either BUSTED or CONFIRMED by the time I finished the blog entry, but not only has it not been answered, the very myth itself seems to be retreating over the horizon the closer we get to it, like heat shimmering on a bitumen road in January.

I am becoming less and less convinced that a weird name will ruin anyone’s life, and moreover, I am becoming less and less certain that weird names even exist, in any useful sense of the word “weird”.

Even Raiyybanzi isn’t that strange once you get used to it – it’s really just a juiced-up Raymond.

News Limited Name Study

30 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by A.O. in Historical Records, Names in the News

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

classic names, hyphenated names, name studies, popular names, popularity, punctuation in names, unique names, unisex names, variant spellings

John and Margaret – #1 in Australia Since Forever

News Ltd analysed all the name data in Australia since 1790, and have found that the most popular names in our history are John for boys, and Margaret for girls. Nearly 262 000 boy babies have been named John in the past 220 years, and 96 458 baby girls have received the name Margaret.

Also-Rans

While John is oodles ahead of the #2 boy’s name, David, Margaret wasn’t far ahead of Sarah, Elizabeth and Mary.

Most Consistent Performers

William and Mary have appeared in the Top Ten for each year more often than any other names.

Top Ten Then, and Now

Only two names in history have managed to make the overall Top Ten and the Top Ten of 2011 – William and James. That shows how tough it is to choose a name which is truly “timeless”. And for a girl, apparently impossible.

Numbers of Names

112 689 different names have been used between 1790 and 2011 – 76 459 female, and 46 230 male. Much more variety in girl’s names, it seems (although I wonder how many of those are just variant spellings?)

Unique Names

51 293 females and 31 042 males have received unique names in our history (again, is this including variant spellings?)

The Gamut of Unique Names

Girls – Aab to Zyrkia-Lee

Boys – A to Zzak (aha, I knew it was just variant spellings!)

Differences Between States

South Australia: The most relaxed about gender, with a number of boys called Sharon, and girls named George, David, John, Stephen and Trevor. (Or else they just have more clerical errors than any other state).

Victoria: The most likely to abandon old-time names, with Basil, Cecil, Agnes and Eunice completely out of use since the late 1920s to early 1930s. (This seems rather selective).

Queensland: The most likely state to have hyphenated names and/or apostrophes in their names. Examples included Lospipeli-Fakamanatu-He-Lotu-Ka, Onyx-Z’Xyon, Zche-Ztev’n and Bendeicta-Malia-Eva-I-Loto-Mua.

Tasmania: The most fond of variant spellings for names (I can attest that this one is quite accurate).

Please note that Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory declined to share their name data, which must make the study incomplete.

Worst Names Ever, According to “Experts”

These names were voted the worst of all time, by a panel of un-named experts. (Probably just the journalists and a couple of their friends). See if you agree!

BOYS

  1. B/O
  2. Trey’Von
  3. Adaquix-Jeramiah
  4. Zzak (I think they just lazily went for the last name on the list)
  5. Aeneas (philistines)
  6. Baileyjayden
  7. Trinkyn
  8. A, B, C, D etc (I think they lazily just went for the first name on the list)
  9. Niño (I think they’re daft to say this is a bad name)
  10. Ace (ridiculous that this makes the Top Ten of worst names!)

GIRLS

  1. Bacardee (plain snobbish to make this the #1 worst name in history)
  2. Kataraina-Heneti-Teowaena-Hune-Maera (cultural diversity – boo! hiss!)
  3. Chawnlahnee
  4. Janis-“Milly”
  5. Achant’E
  6. Tinkerbell (bit predictable to go after this one)
  7. Lotus-Moon (ditto)
  8. Dare (I fail to see the horror)
  9. Abbegaile (no WAY is this the worst variant spelling in history! I even know how it’s said!)
  10. Bardót-Dior
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