The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

What names do we give our newborns? Concentration of parental baby-naming choices on fewer names implies tighter social constraints on appropriate baby names, whereas a wider dispersion of parents’ choices reflects a desire to assert individuality. Individualistic people give their children rare names, reflecting a desire to stand out, as opposed to common names, which reflect instead a desire to fit in. Among advanced countries, those whose inhabitants have more idiosyncratic names rank higher on the Hofstede index of cultural individualism, representing “a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families.”