Today in class we talked about names and what they mean. We discussed things such as how a name sounds or if a name has an association with a certain social class. Another thing we discussed is how many family names were changed when immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island. I know, for one, that my great-grandfather's name was Wolfgang when he came to the states, but that was immediately changed to William. A few people also gave examples of names being shortened. I think names hold the potential to shape who you are or, at least, how you see yourself, and this is why I find them so intriguing. Our teachers also showed us a really cool link that showed the trends of popularity for names in the past. We plugged in several different names to see what type of trends there were, and got quite a few different reactions from kids among the class. For one, there were a few names that did not make it into the database. It was also interesting to see the various trends and current popularity of the names of kids in the class. Another surprise was the gender usually associated with certain names. For example, my name, Quincy, is usually considered a boys' name, however, my parents chose to use it for me. Most people in the class did not realize that my name was, in fact, traditionally a boys' name. Perhaps it is because they don't know other Quincys and therefore they associate the name with the gender of the person they know. But I wonder what this tells us.
Does this mean that certain names have certain connotations because of the way the have been used in the past? Or do names just "sound" a certain way to people? Can a name define who someone is? Why do you think some names are so much more popular than others?
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I think "sound" and sophistication of the name are major factors in the name slope of the century. I used the Baby Name Wizard link that Mr. Bolos put up on the website and found that many of the sophisticated names like William, Elizabeth, and Charles have passed their time, they were the names of the previous generation. I think the fact that many of these names were used in royalty is a contribution to society's change of name, because no one would like to name their child after a monarchical figure when we live in a democratic capitalistic country.
ReplyDeleteInstead of proper sounding names, new generation names have sprung, like Ian, Quentin, and Xander.