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Name: A Matter of Taste
Author: Stanley Lieberson

Stanley Lieberson

How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change

(5 ratings)

19 mins

Table of Contents

A Matter of Taste
summarized in 11 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Find out why and how fashions change over time.

We live in an individualistic time: most people want to express their personality and strive towards inner fulfillment to suit their individual needs.

And while we’re all still certainly unique, what we personally like or dislike can never be seen out of context of society as a whole. But if it’s not our individuality, what is it that brings about changes in fashion? Why do different generations keep choosing different names for their children?

These blinks address all those questions, and you’ll also find out:

why you aren’t the master of your sense of taste,
why Donald Duck is relevant for a name fashion,
why Mexican-Americans wouldn’t name their son Joshua and
why freak shows aren’t in vogue anymore.

Different from customs, fashion is regularly undergoing change for novelty’s sake.

When we hear the word fashion, the first thing that springs to mind are catwalks and designer labels. But the term describes far more than that. Fashion is a phenomenon that can be found in all aspects of society.

Changes in fashion usually happen for novelty’s sake, not to enhance or alter an object or concept. In other words, a fashion is something new for the sake of its novelty as well as aesthetic reasons: last season’s sweater still fits and keeps you warm, but you’ll buy a new one anyway simply because it’s the latest “thing.”

However, we don’t only buy new things because of fashion: we’ll also buy something because it’s objectively enhanced, e.g., a smartphone with a longer battery life. This doesn’t qualify as a fashion since the change hasn’t occurred purely for novelty’s sake.

It’s also important to distinguish fashions from customs – though customs can develop into fashions.

Different cultures may have distinctive habits of dressing, furnishing, etc. that aren’t “purely utilitarian,” but as long as these habits don’t change regularly, they’re customs and not a fashion. For example, the kimono might be a distinctive clothing style that doesn’t serve a direct purpose, but for a long period of time it was the traditional dress in Japan, hence it is a custom rather than a fashion.

But if at some point the kimono makes a comeback among Japanese designers, it would be considered a fashion. That's because dressing habits first become a matter of fashion when there's a regular change in styles for the sake of novelty.

Finally, fashion also has an influence on non-material things. Fashions change over time and an actress’s hairdo or a piece of music from the early 20th century no longer have the same impact on an audience today. Even Beethoven’s most famous symphony that enthused a whole generation isn't played in every concert house today.

The development of fashions is determined by external and internal social influences.

Most of us think our taste is an expression of our own individuality. If that were true, why is there such a thing as fashion, where big groups of people change what they like collectively, whether it’s furniture, clothing or entertainment?

It’s because, in the end, our individual choices always happen in the greater framework of social influences.

First names are great for studying fashion developments because everyone can do it.

Have you ever looked at old pictures of your parents and been amused by their huge glasses or petticoats? How could those things ever have been in fashion? Fashions and tastes are hard to understand, but we can get a better grasp of them by studying first names.

There are a couple of good reasons why.

Names became a matter of fashion rather than custom when societies entered the modern era.

If you’ve ever had children, you’re sure to remember the debate surrounding what their names should be. While this process is typical part of the journey of becoming a parent today, it used to be a far simpler matter in former times.

In general, family and religion used to play a bigger role in people’s lives, and the customs involved in both of those things influenced name-giving. In many cultures, it was common to name children after certain family members or ancestors. In traditional Greek villages, the first-born male usually received the name of the paternal grandfather.

To a certain extent, social changes affect naming fashions.

Humans are always affected by what goes on around them – and the choice of names is no exception.

Once something has become a matter of fashion, social influences can affect changes in it. This is called secondary influence. Once the broad influence of modernization turned names into a matter of taste, other social changes started determining which names become fashionable and when.

Internal mechanisms make fashions develop gradually and in a certain direction.

Have you ever wondered why we can figure out approximately when a picture was taken just from what the people in it are wearing? That’s because there are some internal mechanisms that prevent fashion from just randomly changing.

First of all, new tastes are always based on already existing tastes. As a matter of fact, “modest variants on existing tastes” tend to be what’s most appealing to us. Extreme changes, on the other hand, often don’t seem as appealing because we still judge them based on our current tastes.

Tastes in names change internally through incremental replacement.

Have you ever had the urge to change your hair, your home, your life as you know it? While some of us look for radical change on occasion, fashion usually doesn’t: the internal mechanisms of taste are much more conservative than that.

Tastes and fashions usually change gradually. For example, when dresses started getting shorter, they did so centimeter by centimeter. Imagine they had gone from ankle- to knee-length out of the blue – such a sudden shift wouldn’t have been appealing to most people. And although the modest shift of a few centimeters might not be noticeable from our perspective anymore, it was a change in fashion back then.

Symbolism can influence the attractiveness of a name.

When we hear somebody’s name, we often think: “that name fits her” or “that name doesn’t suit him at all.” This happens because a name is usually more than just an accumulation of sounds: there’s a whole lot of symbolism attached to them.

Random external events give names symbolic meanings. If a person with an uncommon name becomes famous, people connect that name with that person. For example, the name “Barack” wasn’t well-known before Barack Obama became president of the United States, but now most people probably connect the name “Barack” with him.

Fashions in names change through collective action.

Most of us care about what others think of us. Even if we want to be unique, we still define ourselves in relation to what others do. This is why fashion can never be reduced to individual choices alone. We always have to consider collective action as well.

Collective action means that people’s behavior depends on how others behave or are expected to behave. For example, if you want to fit in a crowd of party people, you might suggest going to a nightclub for an evening out because you expect your crowd to like that suggestion. Others might act in the same way, which can decisively influence the outcome of the decision.

The changing name tastes of immigrants show how both external and internal mechanisms influence our choices.

Names are often connected to one’s origin or heritage. So what happens to the taste in names in groups that migrate?

Many groups of immigrants are influenced by the external event of their migration when choosing a name. When immigrant groups from a certain country start coming to the United States, they often choose fashions according to the logic of assimilation. In this case, they chose names popular among US citizens and not those typical of their native cultures.

The influence of popular culture on names is higher when the names already fit the trend.

It’s easy to believe that the names of celebrities or fictional characters could influence fashions in names, since they reach many people and often have positive connotations. But we shouldn’t be too quick to believe this simple explanation.

The general belief that movies and novels have a great impact on name choices is not all true.

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What is A Matter of Taste about?

A Matter of Taste examines how and why fashions and tastes in things like baby names change over time.

Best quote from A Matter of Taste

The development of fashion in names, such that they are increasingly given to children because of aesthetic measures, is a relatively recent development.

—Stanley Lieberson

Who should read A Matter of Taste?

Anyone interested in how fashions develop
Anyone who wants to know why we pick the baby names we do
Anyone looking for inspiration in choosing a child’s name

About the Author

Stanley Lieberson is a Canadian sociologist and research professor at Harvard University. Besides first names and fashions, he has studied language conflicts, race and ethnic relations.

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