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My Name is Distinction: Parents’ Cultural Capital and Their Naming Preferences

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyzes the relationship between Polish parents’ cultural capital and their naming preferences. Drawing on sociological accounts of name popularity cycles and class tastes in naming, the author compares two sets of first names: of medical students (3125 cases in a purposeful sample) and of all Poles born in roughly the same period. Parents of the former, who generally have more cultural capital than other parents, were relatively more inclined to choose traditional names and avoid those owing their popularity to shortterm fashion. The data do not provide evidence of widespread hierachical diffusion of high-brow naming preferences, that is, their subsequent adoption by parents with less cultural capital.

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