Jürgen Gerhards. The Name Game: Cultural Modernization and First Names. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2005. Foreword. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7658-0297-2.
Reviewed by Dieter K. Buse (Department of History, Laurentian University)
Published on H-German (January, 2008)
The Name in the Game is No Longer German
Sorting names into categories can be a confusing task. Salvador James Raja Pascal is probably not a set of German/Christian first names, though James might be equated with Jacob and that has biblical origins. Isis Aurora Freya also seems lacking in Germanic connotations, though Freya's Nordic origins may fit the criteria. Thus designated, my son's children carry ties to politics, family, place of conception, friendships, and mythology that hint at modernization or globalization of first name patterns among the latest generation of Buses residing in England. My daughter in Canada, however, has been more traditional, naming her first son David Michael and her second Jason Kyle. Only her eldest would qualify as having German and biblical names.
The point of this discussion is not to point out my pride in my grandchildren, but rather to show how difficult it must be for a book to clarify the relationship of German names and modernization if it never clarifies the definition of a German or Christian name. Ours is an era when last names have undergone transformations through hyphenation and personal choice, but Gerhards nonetheless insists that "[i]n contrast to last names, first names are selected" (p. 11). The book's title does not convey that "the game" relates to the alteration of traditional names in Germany from the 1890s to the 1990s. Most of the empirical data is drawn from two similar-sized, well-chosen villages in western and eastern Germany plus some comparison with materials drawn from other studies. One village, Gerolstein in Rhineland-Pfalz, is Catholic while the other, Grimma in Saxony, is mostly Protestant. But, the author's identification of "German" or "Christian" names is oddly limited: "In 1894, Katharina, Anna, Maria, Magdalena, and Elizabeth were among the most common names for girls; in 1994, Katharina, Laura, Sarah, Julia, and Michelle were typical" (p. 27); "Kurt, Ernst, Friedrich, Heinrich, Karl, Hermann, Otto and Wilhelm are typical German names for men. Edeltraud, Ulrike, Friederike, Sieglinde, Dörte, Margit, and Gisela are popular German names for women" (p. 41). In the latter no time specification is offered. Otherwise, with a few exceptions, the actual names ascribed to be German, Christian, Jewish, and "modern" remain vague, aside from recent alterations such as "Markus" becoming "Marcus."
The book is organized into nine chapters plus a foreword that informs the reader that this book is translated from a German manuscript. The introduction, "The Culture of Society," argues for the importance of the social situation in understanding all historical circumstances. Then "Data, Methods and Research Context" are quickly sketched before the author begins to present evidence from his case studies in "Secularization Processes and the Dissolution of Religious Ties." The chapter "Dissolution of Traditional Ties," regarding post-1950 changes, follows a highly intriguing chapter on "Regime Change and the Rise and Fall of German Names in the Twentieth Century." Two chapters consider the "Rise of the Individual" and "Globalization," after which "Gender Classification and Changing Sex Roles" precede "Synopsis: Cultural Development and First Names."
Among the major findings of the work--after much discussion about the meaning of terms such as secularization and individuation and sociological debates surrounding these concepts--are that in the two studied places "the percentage of Christian first names dropped from 50 to 32 percent" (p. 27) between 1894 and 1994, with a big spurt of secularization taking place from 1934 to 1942. However, after 1980, "the percentage of Christian first names rose" though now "denuded of their Christian meaning," an assertion that remains unexplained (p. 27). The changes are ascribed to modernization processes such as increased education and greater welfare and security, "but the precipitous decline in Christian first names after 1933 was obviously a byproduct of National Socialist ideology, which succeeded in persuading people to choose ethnic German rather than Christian first names for their children" (p. 38). The importance of the Nazi era is underscored in the percentage of "German" first names: "After a slight dip at the turn of the century, the percentage of German names rose from 30 percent [in the first decades] to 50 percent following the Second World War ... only to then decrease continually in significance until 1994 when it sunk to around 5 percent" (p. 42).
The shifts are related to the formation of the national state in the late nineteenth century and increasing nationalism, including the racial state of the Third Reich. A related finding is that the "decrease in Jewish-Hebrew names had already set in much earlier and continued into the 1960s. The upswing in Jewish names thereafter was owing to the fashionableness of names from previously alien cultural milieus" (p. 45). Slight differences between Protestant and Catholic cases are attributed to degrees of nationalist penetration, while postwar discrediting of nationalism undercut the popularity of German names.
The validity of the author's theses about secularization processes and modernization are difficult to judge, as readers are forced to take for granted that the definitions and categories employed in ascribing first names to specific categories is accurate or appropriate. I suspect that historians would prefer to see many more specific cases and trajectories of name changes within specific families over generations to accept the sociological methods and claims as opposed to what the book offers, namely the results of examinations of birth registers in tabulated form. Where do the author's "Jürgen" or the reviewer's "Dieter" fit? Are they typical German names of the 1940s and 1950s? The persons mentioned in the book's foreword have the following first names: none, Michael, Franz Joseph, Georg, Dorothea, Katrin, Jan Christian, Jörg, Rolf, and Kevin (English translator). This list seems to hint at much more continuity with traditional names than the book suggests, since the persons appear to be Germans of the author's generation. It seems legitimate to point to this haphazard set of names, since Gerhards begins with anecdotal evidence from 1986 and 2004 to suggest that great shifts in the choices of first names have occurred recently. Thus, questions about perception as well as actual changes are part of the issue. The anecdotes he uses are drawn from the experiences of educated friends who cast names about for an about-to-be-born child. He claims that their cases fit with the structured, culturally determined naming that he thinks reflects their social milieu and which have been the main determinants in name choices. The friends rejected numerous choices because celebrity names were vulgar, "Old [from when? D.B.] German names like Wilhelm, Uta or Otto" were too traditional and "Jewish names, like Sarah or Daniel" were often used in the previous decade, so the child was named Stella. Next he recounts the recent birthday guests of his children Niklas and Hannah: Maurice, Leon, Anselm, Julius, Lea, Laura, Sarah, Katharina, Jamie, Annabelle, and Henriette. He asks what happened to the names he insists would have appeared at a birthday party in the 1930s: Heinrich, Otto, Wilhelm, Bertha, Erna, Maria, Annegret, and Elizabeth. He does not indicate on what basis he can claim the latter, just as he offers no substantiation for the limited lists of first names cited as typical in 1894 and 1994.
If one consults the lists of registered names tabulated by the Mannheim Institute for Language, which does an annual summary of name choices, one finds quite a different list for the 1990s than Gerhards's, and it suggests a recent de-secularization. If one examines the list in a book of German first names from 1910, it differs greatly from the list of favorite names Gerhards provides. Perhaps the problem is that without providing a long list of examples or specific identification as to which category a name supposedly belongs, understanding trends will remain difficult.
The book's graphs are small and difficult to read, much of the footnoting is numbered incorrectly, and photos are employed as evidence in an odd fashion. To illustrate: in the chapter on secularization processes and dissolution of religious ties, Gerhards claims, "National Socialism was an anti-clerical regime that simultaneously offered a German-nationalist ideology acceptable to a substantial portion of the population" (p. 30) His first photo, from May 1, 1939, shows "swastikas and a crucifix peacefully coexisting" (with the military that had probably set up the Nazi decorations) at a roadside where the large crucifix appears to be a permanent structure (p. 32). For the other photos that place and date are not given, Gerhards states: "By contrast, the next two photographs illustrate the head-to-head competition between religion and National Socialism" (p. 31). The reason why these photos are considered representative is not addressed, but for the author they purport to show cultural secularization.
Despite its shortcomings, this little book is engaging and leads to reflection on a very personal aspect of history. What impact have changes in literacy and communication systems had on name choices? Are the limits of globalization reflected in first name choices? What happened to godparents as a source of personal names? When did books or websites with lists of suggested names first appear? Who has more influence in naming a child--the mother, the father, the parents' peers? What role do celebrity names play and why have some traditional German names made a comeback? Naming may be a game or it can be serious business. Gerhards helps to rethink the personal in relation to the larger community or levels of communities.
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Citation:
Dieter K. Buse. Review of Gerhards, Jürgen, The Name Game: Cultural Modernization and First Names.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2008.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14088
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