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Help[Facts] Re: Just talked to the NY Times about...
in reply to a message by Mike C
Yup, she talked to me first and I referred her to the information about fastest-growing names on this site. Glad she was able to get ahold of you! :)
And I already told her that Nevaeh was the name young women on Websites most love to hate.
And by the way, I have no evidence that "fundamentalist evangelicals" are more likely to be naming daughters Nevaeh than people of other religious persuasions are. One of the few young women on babynames.com who ever said she liked it was a Jew living in New York City, and I have seen other posts by people who have named daughters Nevaeh who say they are not religious at all but just thought it was a cool name.
And I already told her that Nevaeh was the name young women on Websites most love to hate.
And by the way, I have no evidence that "fundamentalist evangelicals" are more likely to be naming daughters Nevaeh than people of other religious persuasions are. One of the few young women on babynames.com who ever said she liked it was a Jew living in New York City, and I have seen other posts by people who have named daughters Nevaeh who say they are not religious at all but just thought it was a cool name.
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Well, not being in the States I don't know ... but I'm going on some comments on the BabyCenter naming polls! "Our heavenly angel", etc, and the wish for a "biblical" name (!) that's also uncommon. Of course, that kind of stat is terminally flawed but it must be hard to get a sample population that isn't self-selecting for all naming stats work.
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Well, believe it or not, neither the impulse to think of one's daughter as a "heavenly angel" or the desire to have a "Biblical" name are restricted to evangelical Christians. Stanley Lieberson, the sociologist at Harvard who does research on naming patterns, has found that in the USA people who are regular church-goers are somewhat LESS likely to give their children real Biblical names than non-church-goers are. The impulse to give one's child a "Biblical" name is often a desire for a sense of historical depth rather than a statement about one's spiritual beliefs. :)
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