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baby in the United States are less and less likely to share their name with other kids , new research finds .
The trend toward progressively unique baby name is long - standing , but some researchers had speculated that parent might turn back to tradition amidst the doubt of the 2008 Great recess . Not so , harmonize to a new analysis of Social Security naming data point published online Sept. 20 in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology .
What’s your name cutie pie?
" Through the recession and afterward , American parent continued the trend toward choosing more alone names for their shaver , " said Jean Twenge , a psychologist at San Diego State University and source of " Generation Me : Why Today ’s Young Americans Are More Confident , Assertive , Entitled – and More misfortunate Than Ever Before " ( Free Press , 2007 ) . " That ’s surprising , because the outsize individuality of the mid-2000s seemed to fade during the recession as the commonwealth tighten its belts . " [ Sophia ’s private : The 10 Most Popular Baby Names ]
One-of-a-kind names
Twenge and her colleagues describe in 2010 that Americans had become more fixated onfinding unequalled epithet for their children . An analysis of the Social Security name database , which contains the names of everyone with a societal security measures act , bring out , for exercise , that about 40 percentage of male child received one of the 10 most plebeian names in the 1880s , but fewer than 10 percent of boy got a top-10 name in 2007 .
Multiple stemma of research suggest that American culture has beengetting increasingly individualistic for at least a century . Surveys reveal more self - focusing and less empathy in today ’s vernal people than the younker of previous generations , for example , and books arenow more potential to bear individualistic word and phraseslike " all about me " and " self . " Baby name calling can be an " unbelievable " windowpane into such individualism , Twenge said . Since choosing a baby ’s name is not just an position measure on a survey , but also a behavior , those names bring out how mass are act , not just what they ’re saying , Twenge say Live Science .
Twenge and her colleagues feel that the percentage of infant receivingthe most popular namescontinued its downhill microscope slide between 2004 and 2015 , with the recession induce nary a hiccup in the course . Between 2004 and 2006 , 10.09 percent of U.S. baby boys have a top-10 name . This percentage decline to 8.6 percent between 2008 and 2010 , before falling to 8.15 percentage between 2011 and 2015 .
The step-up in unique name choices was more extreme for boy than for girl , possibly because creativity in boy names has historically lagged behind creativity in young lady name , Twenge say . Between 2004 and 2006 , 8.2 percent of fresh babe girls got a top-10 name . From 2008 to 2015 , that percentage declined to 7.88 .
The same patterns held when analyzing the top 25 name or the top 50 names , and in fact were a little stronger , Twenge say . That was an interesting determination , because the popularity of top-50 name calling is n’t as well publicized as the annual inclination of the top 10 , she said .
It’s not the economy
The researchers also examined the nominate trends against the background of the economy . Some theorists had speculated that increased economic severity might make people more focused on the community , and thus make a diminution in individualism . One study , published in 2013 in the journalSocial Psychological and Personality Science , found increases of communal behavior like charitable bodily function among high - schoolers during the 2008 corner . But baby name did n’t follow that pattern , Twenge said . [ 7 Baby Myths Debunked ]
There was also no difference in the trend toward uniqueness between Texas and California , two state that were strike very differently by the receding . ( All of the results were align to take the immigration rate into bill , as immigrants presumptively bring fresh name calling with them into the country . )
" There ’s just a farsighted - scale course toward singularity and individuation that is n’t necessarily settle down in these economic cycles , " Twenge said .
The researcher did incur that higher median family income correlated with the style toward few mutual names . Income inequality also correlate with few Sophias and Jacobs , which are two of the most pop baby name for girls and boy , respectively . These finding do n’t prove that income and relative income explain all the unique baby names out there . However , other scientist have found thatincome inequality correlates with gamy self - regard .
" Maybe people feel like they need to stand out more because only some people make it , " Twenge said .
It ’s important to observe that , opinion on the name Nevaeh away , today ’s millennian parent are n’t dramatically more grievous than the Gen - Xers or Baby Boomers that add up before . The change in individualism has been gradual , moving only a few point on the shell from contemporaries to generation . And Americans still value friend and family as much as they ever did , even as they become less communal in other ways , according to 2012 research .
Besides , some facets of laissez faire are probably ripe . Millennials incline to appreciate differences and apply margin , Twenge said . Individualism is a lens to avail people understand cultural chemise , both salutary and bad , she added .
" I ’d care to start a conversation , to have people talk about the changes in our culture , " she said .
