From the 1900s to the 2010s, the number of different first names given at least once to each sex at the civil registry increased from about 1,500 to about 6,500 per year (Figure 1). More and more parents are choosing relatively original, distinctive and individualizing first names for their children, which allow them to appear unique or to “stand out” from the crowd (Twenge et al. 2010; Lawson 2016: 189). This multiplication of first names may be considered as an indication of the process of individualization that has been at work in France since the 18^th century, and which has accelerated since the middle of the 20^th century. Fourquet and Manternach (2019: 60, 90) have called this trend a rise of “mass narcissism”.

Figure 1.

Number of distinctive first names given in France by sex and birth year, 1900–2019. Field: births in France (excluding Mayotte) from 1900 to 2019, N = 85 047 407. Source: INSEE 2020.

Among the first names given in France in the 20^th century, there were always more female than male names (Figure 1). “Whereas in the classical ages [16^th–18^th centuries], female first names were always less numerous, however, since the 19^th century onwards they have multiplied, and the male stock has been overtaken by the female one” (Bozon 1987: 90; see also Desplanques 1986: 65–66). More feminine versions of initially masculine names than masculine versions of initially feminine names came into existence, and in addition feminine diminutives became first names more often than masculine ones. “From the nineteenth century onward [...], the number of circulating female first names has exceeded the number of circulating male first names: while Jeannette becomes an individual first name, Jeannot remains a nickname (and is not registered in the civil registry)” (Coulmont 2014: 34).

The fact that parents tend to give relatively more original, varied or foreign names to their daughters than to their sons is not specific to contemporary France. This can also be seen in Germany at the end of the 20^th and beginning of the 21^st centuries (Gerhards and Hans 2009: 1109–1110; see also Gerritzen 2006: 180) and in Spain in 2004 (Mateos and Tucker 2008). Actually, this fact is not even specific to the Western or Christian populations, as it has been reported in the long history of the Jewish diaspora – in which religious culture is passed on through boys – until the 20^th century (Lawson 2016: 180), in the Parisian Jewish bourgeoisie during the 19^th century (Grange 2016: 78–79), among immigrants to the United States in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries (Sue and Telles 2007: 1384; Carneiro et al. 2020), among immigrants and descendants of Hispanic immigrants in Los Angeles County in 1995 (Sue and Telles 2007: 1395–1408), among immigrants (from Southern Europe, the former Yugoslavia, and Turkey) in Germany from the 1980s to the 2000s (Gerhards et Hans 2009: 1118), among the Russian-speaking minority in Finland in the 2000s and 2010s (Eskola et Hämäläinen 2019: 207), among immigrants to France in 2008 (Mignot 2021), and among Pakistani Muslim immigrants to the UK (Bramwell 2011: 36). The fact that parents tend to give relatively more traditional names to their sons was also observed in Turkey in 1950-2010 (Sabuncu and Coulmont 2011), in Iran in the 1960s-1980s (60 percent of boys are given an Islamic name compared to only 25 percent of girls) (Habibi 1992: 258), among Israeli Jews in the 1970s-2010s (Landman 2016: 140), among the Palestinian middle school students in Israel and the West Bank in the 2000s-2010s (Amara 2014: 220–223), and among the Malays in Malaysia in 2016 (Robustova 2016: 216).

To explain this phenomenon and its relatively general nature, it is sometimes argued that sons, who are responsible for passing on the family heritage (farm, livestock, family business) as well as the family identity and family name, are quite often given first names after their forefathers, thus inheriting the small stock of traditional first names. In contrast, for girls, the choice of first name is more aesthetic, fashionable, and distinctive, leading to an increase in the number and diversity of first names given.

While in the 1810s, 65% of newborns in France were given one of the top-10 most popular names of the decade, in the 2010s it was only 10% (Figure 2). If we examine only the most common first names for each sex in the 1810s (Jean and Marie) and in the 2010s (Gabriel and Emma), the evolution is striking again: whereas in the 1810s, 14% of boys were named Jean and 19% of girls - Marie, in the 2010s only 1% of boys were named Gabriel and 1% of girls - Emma. These major decreases in the concentration of first names reflect the rise of cultural individualism.

Figure 2.

Share of newborns in France who were given one of the top-10 first names of the decade, by sex and birth decade, 1800s–2010s. Field: births in France from 1800 to 2019. Sources: Dupâquier et al. 1987: 106–107 (1800–1899, N = 89 379); INSEE 2020 (1900–2019, N = 85 047 407). Note: Following the convention adopted in (Dupâquier et al. 1987), in this figure the male name Jean includes all male compounds beginning with Jean-XXX and the female name Marie includes all female compounds beginning with Marie-XXX.

The most traditional first names of the last two centuries in France have been found in the whole Western world for a long time. The most given male name in France from the 1800s to the 1950s is Jean (Dupâquier et al. 1987). Jean is also the most frequently mentioned Christian first name in French literature in the 17^th - 20^th centuries (Frantext database, where it appears in 1,528 texts out of 3,000) (Brunet 1988: 131). It is since around the 12^th century that the Latin name Iohannes has given various cognates: Jean in French, Giovanni in Italian, Juan in Spanish, and João in Portuguese, as well as John in English, Hans in German, etc. (Leibring 2016: 204). Latin Iohannes or Ioannes itself comes from the Greek Ἰωάννης which itself comes from the Hebrew Yohanan () or Yehohanan (), which in classical Hebrew means “God is good”. John was also the most given first name in the United States in the 1880s-1910s (Social Security 2020), as well as in England and Wales in the 1910s-1940s (Office for National Statistics 2014, 2020). Their Spanish cognate Juan was also the most given male name in Mexico City (Mexico) in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, before being surpassed by Joseph or Josep and then José in the 18^th century throughout the second half of the 20^th century (Boyd-Bowman 1970).

Marie is the most popular female name in France in the 1800s-1950s (Dupâquier et al. 1987), and is also the most frequently mentioned female Christian first name in French literature in the 17^th – 20^th centuries (Frantext database, where it appears in 1,104 texts out of 3,000) (Brunet 1988: 131). It is since around the 12^th century that the female first name Maria has become particularly common in Southern Europe, then in Germany and Scandinavia (Leibring 2016: 206). Mary is the most given first name in the United States in the 1880s through the 1950s (Social Security 2020), as well as in England and Wales in the 1900s through the 1910s (Office for National Statistics 2014, 2020). Maria has also been the most popular female name in Mexico City since the 16^th century; for example, among girls born in Mexico City in 1800, 92% are given the name María among their other given names (they have an average of four) (Boyd-Bowman 1970: 21, 24). Similarly, Maria was the most popular name in Brazil in the 1930s – 2000s (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistíca 2010).

The major decrease in the concentration of first names is not specific to France either. The same is true in Mexico City, where names today are much less concentrated than in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, when 60% to 75% of newborns were given one of the top-10 names for their sex (Boyd-Bowman 1970: 16). The same phenomena can also be observed in the United States, where the share of newborns given one of the top-10 most popular names of the decade sharply declined in the 1880s – 2010s, from 38% to 8% for boys and from 21% to 8% for girls, respectively (Figure 3; Twenge et al. 2010: 21). For more than a century, first names have been generally less concentrated in the United States than in France (Figures 2 and 3), as if the United States were more advanced in the long-term process of individualization. First names have also tended to become less concentrated (and to be relatively more concentrated for boys) in England and Wales since at least the 1990s (Stripe 2019; Office for National Statistics 2020). In Java, Indonesia, the share of newborns who are given one of the top-20 most popular names has been declining since the 1980s (Kuipers and Askuri 2017: 39–40).

Figure 3.

Share of newborns in the United States who were given one of the top-10 first names of the decade, by sex and birth decade, 1880s–2010s. Field: births in the United Stated from 1880 to 2019, N = 372 948 994. Source: Social Security 2020. Note: The first names of people who were born before 1937 or of those who never applied for a Social Security card or did apply without specifying their place of birth are not included in the data.

Until the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the vast majority of the most popular names given in each decade were already in the top-10 of the previous decade (Figure 4). In other words, the most popular names remained relatively stable over time. This is no longer the case today. Since the beginning of the 20^th century the most popular names have been changing more and more rapidly (Desplanques 1986: 68–69). Whereas Jean, Pierre, Louis, François and Joseph were in the top-10 of the most popular male names given throughout the 19^th century, Enzo, Théo, Nathan, Mathis and Clément have been in the top-10 for one decade only (the 2000s). The evolution is even clearer for female names: the stability of Marie, Jeanne, Anne and Louise throughout the 19^th century contrasts to the brevity of the names Clara, Sarah and Océane in the 2000s. In other words, the lifespan of first names is becoming shorter, thus, they are becoming more and more reliable indicators of the generation and age of their bearer, which was not the case before (Bozon 1987: 89–91). Therefore, in France, at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries we moved “from the ‘baptismal name’ transmitted by godparents to the ‘first name’ chosen by parents” (Boyer 2016: 12), “from respect for tradition to a concern for distinction” (Boyer 2016: 18). In most European countries since the 19^th century, the stock of female first names has been more plentiful than the stock of male first names, and the rate of name updates has been faster for female than for male first names (Lawson 1995: 1744; Leibring 2016: 210).

Figure 4.

Number of first names in the decade’s top-10 in France, which already were in the previous decade’s top-10, by sex and birth decade, 1800s–2010s. Field: births by decade in France from 1800–1809 to 2010–2019. Sources: Dupâquier et al. 1987, p. 106–107 (1800–1899, N = 89 379) ; INSEE 2020 (1900–2019, N = 85 047 407). Note: Following the convention adopted in (Dupâquier et al. 1987), in this figure the male name Jean includes all male compounds beginning with Jean-XXX and the female name Marie includes all female compounds beginning with Marie-XXX.

The shortening duration of first name fashion is also observed in other Western countries where long-term data on given names are available. This is the case in England and Wales, the United States, and Brazil, with varying degrees, time frames, and gender gaps (Figure 5). This is also the case in Java, Indonesia, where since the 1980s the most popular first names have been significantly changing from decade to decade (Kuipers and Askuri 2017: 43–45).

Figure 5.

Number of first names in the decade’s top-10, which already were in the previous decade’s top-10: international comparisons

The process of individualization, proxied here by the number and distribution of first names given in France as well as by the shortening of first name fashion cycles, is not the only long-term trend at work in French society.

Does the evolution of boys’ and girls’ first names also reflect the convergence of status and expectations regarding both sexes? Accordingly, do boys’ and girls’ names have more similar morphology (Figure 6) and phonology (Figure 7) now than before?

Figure 6.

Morphology of first names given in France, 1900s–2010s

Figure 7.

Phonology of first names given in France, 1900s–2010s

The share of compound names, which was very low among the first names given at the beginning of the 20^th century and is also very low today, peaked in the middle of the 20^th century, especially in the 1950s, with male compound names slightly prevailing (Jean-Pierre, Jean-Claude, Jean-Luc, Jean-Paul or Jean-Louis) compared to female ones (Marie-Christine, Anne-Marie or Marie-Claude) (Figure 6A). Therefore, concerning their (compound) structure, boys’ and girls’ first names have not become more – or less – similar over time. However, both male and female first names are increasingly shorter (Figure 6B). Whereas until the 1970s female names were, on average, longer than male names, since the 1980s this has not been the case anymore (Figure 6B). Therefore, boys’ and girls’ names have recently become more similar – and indeed indistinguishable – in length.

Since the 1950s, the share of given names beginning with a vowel has slightly increased (Figure 7A), while the share of female names ending with a vowel has slightly decreased (Figu­re 7B). The most salient fact, however, remains the difference in ending between male and female names: today about 85% of given female names end in a vowel, compared with only 34% of male names (Figure 7B). Similarly, among the most frequently given names in Pennsylvania in 1990, most female names ended with one of the following three vowels -a, -e, or -i, while most male names ended with the other letters (except for -h and -y, which were equally frequent in both sexes) (Barry and Harper 2000). While in French the feminine ending is -e, in Latin and most Romance and Slavic languages it is -a, and it is also -a in Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew. Since the human brain tends to associate sounds like “bouba” with a round shape and sounds like “kiki” with a pointed shape (this is called the “bouba-kiki effect”¹), several research studies are investigating whether male and female names sound different and, if so, whether these differences in sounds reflect differences in expectations from boys and girls. Among English-language first names, for example, it would appear that female first names relatively often have sonorities that may seem “round” (Amelia) or small-sounding (Emily), while male first names relatively often have sonorities that may seem “pointy” (Jack) or large-sounding (Thomas) (Pitcher et al. 2013; Sidhu and Pexman 2015; see also Whissell 2001).

Overall, in France girls’ and boys’ first names still have very different endings, however, since the 1980s, girls’ names ceased to be longer than boys’ ones.