The Evolution and Reproduction of a Gender Aesthetic in Children’s Names

• In Event: 428 - Section on Methodology Paper Session. Creative Methodological Approaches to Data Collection and Analysis

Abstract

I study how gender aesthetic conventions structure US naming practices from 1880-2009. I use computational techniques to develop a quantitative measure of a names gender aesthetic—a measure of whether a name shares aesthetic features with predominantly boys’ or girls’ names. I then use this measure to quantify the effect of a number of mechanisms on the reproduction of the gender aesthetic. I find that androgynous names, or names which switch genders, generally switch to the gender that matches their gender aesthetics. New names overwhelmingly conform to the gender aesthetics of previous names, and this accounts for most of the reproduction of the gender aesthetic. I find that both boys’ and girls’ with male aesthetics are more popular. The few popular boys’ names with female aesthetics that do exist generally have an alternative gender signpost, such as being a prominent male figure in a central religious tradition (e.g. Noah). During times when naming practices are most diverse, names conform more tightly to gender aesthetics. Jointly these results have implications for the study of both gender and culture, suggesting that 1) aesthetic rules may be remarkably durable even as the specific objects change; 2) the role of contemporaneous social meaning construction in the interpretation of cultural objects may be overstated; 3) the male aesthetic is more valued than the female; 4) deviant cultural objects generally require legitimation from high status sources; 5) aesthetic rules may be more important during “unsettled times” when the diversity of objects is greatest.

Author

• Charles F. Seguin, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill