# Why do people not have more unique names than they do? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 26, 2018, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615 "2018-07-26T13:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/21 "2018-07-28T13:02:45Z")
Getting back to the OP, I disagree that people don’t have unique names, because in the anglo world, there’s the combination of the last and first name. Sure, that produces some generic names, like “John Smith”, but generally, the combination is unique or uncommon. I’ve never met anyone with my combination of firstname-lastname, and neither has Mrs Piper. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/22 "2018-07-28T13:33:53Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Chaya means “Life.” Life is not a name in English speaking countries. I suppose I could change it to “Vivien,” or something-- in fact, I think that’s where my parents got it-- my mother’s best friend when I was born was named Vivien. “Rivkah Vivien” sounds weird. And at 51, I really don’t feel like starting over as “Rebecca Vivien,” especially fighting the tide of “Becky.” Well, you would not have to worry about any "Becky"s, since “Rebecca” would also get translated, into… Vinca??? (going with the Latin theme)… anyway, I leave it as an exercise. In any case, one can see the difficulty in literally translating names. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/23 "2018-07-28T14:19:54Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > **Mijin** your Chinese coworker names are kind of hilarious but very different from what I’ve found studying alongside large numbers of o/s students. My Chinese classmates (who’ve chosen English names) seem to tend to have what I’d call typical 80’s names - Cindy, Linda, Connie, Kevin, Stephen … that sort of thing Well as full disclosure, not all are coworkers – Billboard and Gryffindor I met only once. But the others all work at my office and though there are also many Jasons and Lilys (because girls with last name “Li” often choose Lily / Lilly / Lilli) there are at least as many that went the route of picking a noun that they liked. So…don’t know why our experiences don’t match. It’s not always positive of course. There’s always a snicker when we’re doing a presentation to foreign visitors and Macnugget’s name comes up. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/24 "2018-07-28T14:39:04Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > In Hebrew without a Yiddish accent, the voiceless pharyngeal(?) fricative in “Chaya” and “Chanukah” is at least as close to “h” as to any random consonant people mispronouncing it might substitute (e.g. “ch” as in “church”), so just spell it “Haya”. Problem solved! 🙂 Repeat the exercise as necessary when you go to Russia or China. Ah, but that is only true for English transliterations! I don’t even know how would that be transliterated in France, but the Sephardi transliteration is Jaya. Germany? That’s where the “ch” comes from. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/25 "2018-07-28T15:16:36Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Ah, but that is only true for English transliterations! I don’t even know how would that be transliterated in France, but the Sephardi transliteration is Jaya. Germany? That’s where the “ch” comes from. Germany is where English borrowed the “ch” to stand for the glottal fricative, but in Hebrew, there is a letter (actually, two different letters) that can indicate that glottal fricative. By two letters, I don’t mean that it takes two letters to indicate the sound, like “Sh” in English for the initial sound of “Show.” I mean, there are two different letters that can each on its own indicate the glottal fricative. Like K & C can both signal the initial sound in “cat.” I don’t know what you mean when you say that Sephardim spell Chaya “Jaya.” Sephardim spell it with Hebrew letters, just as Ashkenazim and other groups of Jews do. There is no group of Jews I know of that uses any other alphabet, albeit, modern prayer books do usually contain transliterations geared toward the pronunciations of whatever the dominant language is in the country in which they are published (as opposed to, say, using the international phonetic alphabet, which no one but linguists can read with fluency. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/26 "2018-07-28T15:21:02Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Chaya means “Life.” Life is not a name in English speaking countries. I suppose I could change it to “Vivien,” or something-- in fact, I think that’s where my parents got it-- my mother’s best friend when I was born was named Vivien. “Rivkah Vivien” sounds weird. And at 51, I really don’t feel like starting over as “Rebecca Vivien,” especially fighting the tide of “Becky.” “Chaya” also has another meaning in Hebrew, which is why it’s not a popular name in Israel. You basically only see it paired up with “Rivka”, and even then, only in deeply Orthodox Ashkenazi families. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/27 "2018-07-28T15:22:17Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The Puritans were very deliberately trying not to give their children Catholic names, so they used names from the Tanakh (the so-called “Old Testament”), and character names, like Prudence, Faith, and Increase (a name you might give a child born in the Autumn of a very good harvest, especially after a bad one the year before, as a way of giving thanks to the All Mighty). > > Some of the Tanakh names were sort of obscure. Zebulon is easy to get, Ruby maybe not so much, but it comes from Proverbs: “Who can find a virtuous woman? Her value is far above rubies.” > > Anyway, any name like Richard, Catherine, Christopher, Helen, George-- way off limits to the Puritans. They even avoided the names Joseph and Mary, Matthew and John, because the Catholics loved them so much. So you get the utterly bizarre names like Praise-God. Full name, Praise-God Barebone. He called his son If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned. There was also a Damned Barebone whose brother was named Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/28 "2018-07-28T16:10:15Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Germany is where English borrowed the “ch” to stand for the glottal fricative, but in Hebrew, there is a letter (actually, two different letters) that can indicate that glottal fricative. By two letters, I don’t mean that it takes two letters to indicate the sound, like “Sh” in English for the initial sound of “Show.” I mean, there are two different letters that can each on its own indicate the glottal fricative. Like K & C can both signal the initial sound in “cat.” You mean ח (i.e., ح), versus כ as in خ? I heard those are only merged in an Ashkenazi accent. But that is a matter of Hebrew pronunciation; what to do when transliterating to a language that lacks one or both of those consonants? > [@](#): > > I don’t know what you mean when you say that Sephardim spell Chaya “Jaya.” Sephardim spell it with Hebrew letters, just as Ashkenazim and other groups of Jews do. There is no group of Jews I know of that uses any other alphabet, albeit, modern prayer books do usually contain transliterations geared toward the pronunciations of whatever the dominant language is in the country in which they are published (as opposed to, say, using the international phonetic alphabet, which no one but linguists can read with fluency. Not all paperwork in Spain uses Hebrew letters, though; it stands to reason someone somewhere might have no choice but to transliterate her name into the Spanish alphabet, and isn’t “Jaya” as close as one is likely to get? [It’s that or go the Vin Vivien route.] I have no idea how unique the resulting name is, but at least it will not lead to a gross mispronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/29 "2018-07-28T16:44:42Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I don’t know what you mean when you say that Sephardim spell Chaya “Jaya.” Sephardim spell it with Hebrew letters, just as Ashkenazim and other groups of Jews do. . Yes but _transliterations_ done by Sephardim use the phonetic maps of Spanish (more commonly), Portuguese or Italian. The same Hebrew which gets transliterated by Ashkenazi jews as Shalom Aleichem gets transliterated by Sephardim as Shalom Aleijem or Shalom Alejem. When you write your name in these boards you’re not using the Hebrew alphabet; you’re transliterating to the Latin alphabet and you’re using a specific transliteration/phonetic map. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/30 "2018-07-28T16:55:05Z")
It is my experience that unique names are more likely to evoke a negative response from older family members. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/31 "2018-07-28T17:09:30Z")
I think that basically, most people don’t invent new names because they believe that _names are things that exist._ By which I mean that they’re _words_, in whatever language, and that most people wouldn’t invent new names any more than they’d invent new words. It may not be strictly logical when people say, “But that’s not a name!”, but I assure you that that’s how the majority of people think. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/32 "2018-07-28T17:21:40Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think that basically, most people don’t invent new names because they believe that _names are things that exist._ By which I mean that they’re _words_, in whatever language, and that most people wouldn’t invent new names any more than they’d invent new words. It may not be strictly logical when people say, “But that’s not a name!”, but I assure you that that’s how the majority of people think. This is usually true, although there are of course exceptions, as there is for pretty much any human behavior. There are groups (such as African-Americans) who are consciously and specifically creating their own names as an affirmation and celebration of their own specific culture. Another group is the Basque: there are traditional Basque names (such as Aránzazu/Arancha/Arantxa as a girl’s name), then when Sabino Arana compiled a list of such names he added a bunch taken out of his left armpit (people used them for decades without realizing this; Leyre is probably the most succesful of these), and then eventually people realized Arana’s… creativity and said “what the heck, I can invent names too!” (Ibai is part of these; it means River). The new Basque names follow the same patterns as French and Spanish names; for example: a noun can be used as a name but a verb can’t. Thing is - both the AA names and the two batches of “new” Basque names have already been around long enough to start repeating. People from a specific culture tend to like similar sounds: Ibai “sounds good” to a mother, and another, and another. And we tend to like similar concepts: the concept of River as a name “sounds good” to people from many different cultures. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/33 "2018-07-28T17:28:16Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > In the military, you call everyone in you rank cohort by their last name (by that, I mean, a slick sleeve private could call an E-4 that, and not need to say “Specialist Smith,” and Sergeants of various ranks can call one another just by last names, even when one outranks the other; lower ranking officers can all just “last name one another,” so a Captain could call a Major that, but a Captain would call a General “General Nuisance”). > > I wonder if people (and by that, I mean men) used to do that because it used to be very common for men to have done a stint in the military. Up until about the time the Baby Boomers were in high school, something like 90% of men without a disqualification had served 2 or 4 years between high school and entering the job market, or, if they went to college, either before college, or else were in the ROTC, then served after college as an officer. I’m pretty sure it predates that; read something like Jane Austen books, all the gentlemen are referred to by surname by all but close family, the servants being known by first name. Referring to someone by surname, at least in England, was a token of respect. It wasn’t common for gentlemen of that era to be soldiers and if they were, it was more likely a long term career plan than a couple of years. It’s quite possible that the military use comes from that concept, that everyone is referred to in the respectful styling, to reinforce the idea that social class isn’t as important as military rank. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/34 "2018-07-28T17:47:33Z")
The military has been around a little bit longer than Jane Austen books. Students in Jesuit schools were adressed by lastname (except if that was going to be confusing) because by the time the Order was founded, that’s how people in the military were adressed. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/35 "2018-07-28T17:58:55Z")
When I see people I knew in the military, especially when I talk to the couple of people from Basic I’m still in touch with, we still call one another by the names we used in the military, which is to say, our last names at the time. All of us were single then, and all of us have gotten married, and no longer use strictly our maiden names anymore. Some just use husband’s last name, some hyphenate, and one came up with an entirely new name based on a portmanteau of translated names. So the conversation would sound very strange to someone who has met any of us recently, and wonders why the hell we’re calling one another those things. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/36 "2018-07-28T19:39:46Z")
I tried to give my daughter a unique (for the USA) name with an Irish spelling. Her Dad and his entire family had a group nervous breakdown. I’ve never seen anything like it. You would have thought I was trying to name her Mongoloida or Vagineesia, or something. His mother was literally sobbing just at the thought of “Treasa” or “Sinead.” They were utterly convinced that anything more creative than “Janet” would destroy her future and tank her career in advance. I think it’s a function of insecurity and anxiety. People who are not accustomed to leading find their safety in fading into the herd. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/37 "2018-07-28T19:58:25Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The military has been around a little bit longer than Jane Austen books. Students in Jesuit schools were adressed by lastname (except if that was going to be confusing) because by the time the Order was founded, that’s how people in the military were adressed. Armies have certainly been around far longer, but a permanent, centrally organised military, in the UK, doesn’t actually predate Ms Austen by that long, being only formed after the British civil war (just checked, it was formed 70 years before her birth). Prior to that, it wasn’t far off local lords rounding up the peasants into militias then ordering them about as they saw fit. Not really any overall rules, and certainly no chance that one of the peasants, however skilled, could end up ranking ahead of the lord, or the lord’s sons. If you would prefer a reference predating the formation of the British Army, Samuel Pepys, writing in the late 1600s, uses the same style in his diary; gentlemen are referred to by surname, servants and commoners by first. It just really stands out in Jane Austen as she repeatedly highlights it and uses the naming system as a plot point. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/38 "2018-07-28T20:48:42Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > I notice that consistently, even in other non-English speaking cultures, typically names are reused and limited so that the average person does not have that distinct of a first name. For instance, Muhammad, John, “Kim”, are extremely common causing much redundancy. This is corrected I suppose with surnames, but still creates lots of ambiguity, since people would prefer to address others by their first name as it is easier but “John” becomes ambiguous otherwise. > > For instance, in Korea the surnames Kim, Lee, and Park are held by 40% of the population. Surnames that are balanced by other names but still… > > It just seems that there would be more distinct names. Are languages that are polysynthetic like the American Indian ones better at creating distinct names? It seems like when it comes to names people are very unimaginative. I suppose a THX style 8124123497 number instead of a name is a step too far, but still. Kim, Lee and Park are Korean family names. Are we talking about family names in this thread or given names? If you want to see interesting Korean given names, take a look at a list of the stage names of K-pop idols. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/39 "2018-07-28T21:18:45Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I think it’s a function of insecurity and anxiety. People who are not accustomed to leading find their safety in fading into the herd. Whether people want to admit or not, names are visible class markers. Unique names are more common among the wealthy and the poor. It is the anxious middle that studies What Will People Think. If they go with a fancy-sounding name, they worry they will be judged as pretentious. If they go with a lower-class sounding name, they worry they will be judged as trashy or ghetto. I understand the fear of coming up with a unique name. “Jennifer” sounds like an okay name now, but I imagine when it was first concocted, it got some eye rolls. How would it not? It kind of sounds like a obscure mammal. So I get the fear. What I don’t get is naming someone an extremely common name. Barring a family tradition of naming a child after someone else, I don’t understand why “John” would be someone’s first pick in a name. And I don’t know why someone would deliberately ride the trendy name train. Seems to me if a name is on the top of the baby naming charts, the inclination would be to come up with a very different name. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2018, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615/40 "2018-07-28T23:10:27Z")
Trendy names sound modern. And people hear them a lot in a baby context so they sound familiar and right as a name for a baby. I have a very unusual first name. When people see it, they don’t know how to pronounce it, even though it is pronounced the way it looks. If they hear it spoken, they don’t know how to write it. Then they mix it up with similar, more familiar names. I have to through this with everyone I meet, some people multiple times. A unique name is a real hassle. I go by my middle name now, because it is a very common name that no one gets confused by. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-not-have-more-unique-names-than-they-do/818615.md?page=3)