Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
LessMore
Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Is a given name always the first name?
No. In much of East Asia the family name is written first. “Given” means bestowed, not left-to-right order.
Where can I see how common a given name is?
SSA (U.S. from 1880), ONS (England and Wales) and Statistics Korea publish counts. Always keep the year on the citation.
Do given names show race or class?
They can be used as signals. Bertrand and Mullainathan showed U.S. employers treating forenames as racial cues on otherwise identical résumés.
What is a generation given name?
In Chinese practice a shared character marks a sibling or cousin cohort. Korean 돌림자 is a related kin design — description, not fortune-telling.
Can a country ban a given name?
Yes. Iceland’s committee, German Namensrecht and Japan’s kanji lists all constrain what may be filed.
Are middle names given names too?
Usually yes — additional given names. Some systems treat them as optional; others expect several.
The best data are registration counts. The best experiments treat a forename as a label on an otherwise identical file.
Etymology dictionaries explain history. They do not explain a child’s future.
Findings
- Lieberson — Forename fashion is structured
Endings, imitation and avoidance of last year’s peak explain much movement in given names.
- Bertrand & Mullainathan — Given names cue race
Emily/Greg vs Lakisha/Jamal changed U.S. callbacks on matched résumés.
- Fryer & Levitt — Distinctive given names
U.S. data showed a late-century rise in racially distinctive forenames.
- Social Security Administration — Mary’s long lead
Mary led U.S. girls’ counts for many years from 1880 through 1961 in published files — a historical band.
- Office for National Statistics — Dated leaders
England and Wales releases show Oliver and Olivia among frequent 2010s leaders — cite the year, do not freeze a live #1.
- Statistics Korea — Public given-name counts
Annual frequencies let researchers watch hanja and native Korean names cycle without inventing destiny.
Mechanisms
- Bestowal — Someone with authority assigns the string — parents, elders, a ritual specialist.
- Frequency dependence — Rarity and popularity are moving targets; parents react to last year’s chart.
- Signal reading — Strangers infer group membership from a forename under time pressure.
- Order rules — Whether the given name is written first is a cultural setting, not a universal.
Debates
- How many given names are enough? — Iberian and Hispanic traditions often expect several; English forms may truncate them.
- Should statistics offices publish ranks? — They aid research and also feed rank worship. Methodology notes matter.
- Is a “unique” given name unfair to the child? — A values clash: distinctiveness versus correction labour. Not a scientific verdict.
Given-name science is about frequencies and hearers. Leave trait forecasts to fiction.