Parents’ Choice of Baby Names Influenced by Evolutionary Tendency: Study

A latest research claims that parents' choice of baby names is influenced by an evolutionary tendency to make boys sound large and girls sound small.

The study was based on previous research that claimed that parents choose names for babies based on 'sound symbolism.' Psychologists and anthropologists from Queen Mary, University of London studied top 50 names of boys and girls from three countries; England, the U.S. and Australia. They focused on the theory that boys' names majorly have "large" vowels such as "o" as in "top" and "a" as in "back", while girls' names would contain "small" vowels such as "i" as in "bid" and "e" as in "set".

Common names of boys such as Thomas, Oliver and Jack have broad vowels often associated with largeness, while girls' names like Emily, Olivia and Sophie have smaller sounding vowels, researchers said.

According to the researchers, parents unconsciously choose names that from an evolutionary perspective and "boost their son or daughter's success in life by increasing the chance of passing on their genes." 

"In general, western societies tend to think of relatively taller men as more masculine and more successful with the opposite sex whereas shorter, slimmer women are perceived as having attractive feminine qualities," said Dr Benjamin Pitcher, from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. "It seems that over time the English language has developed a preference for names that reflect our society's attitudes of what we deem to be attractive qualities in different sexes."

The study stated that all the names from top 50 boys' names had large vowel characteristics and all the top 50 names of girls had small vowel sounds. Scientists said that this shows "similarities to the sexually selected breeding vocalisations of other mammals, where males advertise body size when calling".

The researchers said that they would further investigate if such thing prevails in other languages too. The authors said that in South African Zulu societies, larger women were generally considered more attractive, and that girl's names "symbolic of larger sizes may be favoured in such societies".

"Even though popular names change culturally, this explains why we perceive certain names as masculine and certain names as feminine. It is linked to an expression of body size," co-author Dr Alan McElligott said.