What's In a Name?

Where have all the Bettys, Carols and Shirleys gone? Since the 1940 U.S. Census, when they were at the top of the list for girls' names, the monikers have fallen far out of favor. Today, they're not even in the top 1,000, according to a new study by family history website FindMyPast.com. What's surprising is that while girls' names have changed, the leading boys' names of 1940, including David, Donald, and William, remain popular today.

In fact, girls' names have changed seven times more than boys' names over the past 60-plus years. "American women used to have names like Betty—like Betty Draper in the TV series Mad Men—and marry men with jobs on Madison Avenue," says Joshua Taylor, a genealogist at FindMyPast.com. "Now, women are themselves called Madison and have top jobs—on Madison Avenue and beyond."

So why the dramatic shift in girls' names, and not boys? "By avoiding the most common and old-fashioned names [for girls], parents may enhance their daughters' claims to be young and exotic, and thereby increase their mate value," suggest researchers Nicholas Christenfeld and Britta Larsen of UC San Diego. "In choosing more historically popular names for their boys, parents may signal that their sons are mature and established, and so help them to attract young, exotic mates."