The Name Game

Cultural Modernization and First Names

af Jurgen Gerhards

Jurgen Gerhards shows that shifts in the choice of names are based on more than arbitrary trends of fashion. Instead, they are determined by larger currents in cultural modernization. Gerhards focuses on patterns of first names in Germany from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th, using these as an indicator of cultural change.