A given name holds the spark of identity. It is ours — we wear it — yet it is also the primary label by which others know us. Names are inherently both personal and public.

Some choices are idiosyncratically memorable. Two of Elon Musk’s children are named X Æ A-Xii and Exa Dark Sideræl. Recent name registrations in Alberta include Coyote, Rebel and Teal’C.

More broadly, these parental choices for baby names reflect a shifting cultural pattern. Even choices that appear eccentric are linked to a wider societal drive stressing individual distinctiveness.

Over time, Canadian naming has changed from collective identity to deliberate personal expression.

As a sociologist who has studied the cultural patterns in the given names of Canadians, I know they make an unusually good record of social change. Parents choose them deliberately and they are registered every year, so they reveal cultural shifts almost as they happen.

Names once followed faith and fathers

A century ago, Tom, Dick and Harry were among the most common names for Canadian boys. Back then, the most popular boys’ names were shared far more widely than the most popular girls’ names. Many boys carried the names of biblical heavyweights like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Religious texts named women far less often, though Mary was a notable exception, and for decades it dominated. In Ontario, Marie or Mary was the leading girls’ name from at least 1917, when existing records........

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