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Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names

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  • Xi, Ning
  • Zhang, Zi-Ke
  • Zhang, Yi-Cheng
  • Ge, Zehui
  • She, Li
  • Zhang, Kui

Abstract

In social sciences, there is currently rare consensus on the underlying mechanism for cultural evolution, partially due to lack of suitable data. The evolution of first names of newborn babies offers a remarkable example for such researches. In this paper, we employ the historical data on baby names from the United States to investigate the evolutionary process of culture, in particular focusing on how inequality among baby names changes over time. Then we propose a stochastic model where individual choice is determined by both individual preference and social influence, and show that the decrease in the strength of social influence can account for all the observed empirical features. Therefore, we claim that the weakening of social influence drives cultural evolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Xi, Ning & Zhang, Zi-Ke & Zhang, Yi-Cheng & Ge, Zehui & She, Li & Zhang, Kui, 2014. "Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 406(C), pages 139-144.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:406:y:2014:i:c:p:139-144
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2014.03.042
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Lansley, Guy & Longley, Paul, 2016. "Deriving age and gender from forenames for consumer analytics," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 271-278.

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