What Do Children's Names Say About Iranian Society?

Choosing a child's name may seem like a simple, family-based decision, but examining naming patterns can reveal clues about cultural and identity shifts, and even about parents' visions of their child's future.

Arjan Ambassador of Religion, Religion and Thought Service, Mahdis Mirzaei Etemadi: You have probably heard unfamiliar names of children in the last few years, and at first you doubt whether the name is a boy's or a girl's name, and then you ask the child's parents what it means, and you are faced with answers like "It is an authentic Iranian name." The story of strange naming of children in recent years is one of the topics that has layers and social dimensions of psychology. Naming the choice of several syllables that is supposed to accompany a person for years is a simple and family decision on the surface, but if we look at it from a further distance, naming can also record a part of the social history of a society. When choosing a name, parents don't just ask, "What's a pretty name?", sometimes they decide what their child is going to belong to, what image of family they'll carry with them, and even what world they'll live in.

Of course, one should not make a definitive judgment about the personality or opinions of the parents based on a name. The name is not an indicator to directly measure people's attitude and no list of names alone can explain the social changes of a country. But nomenclature and sociological researches have shown that examining naming patterns can provide researchers with clues about cultural and identity changes.

When parents put a part of themselves on the child's name

If a name has increased in a research, it cannot simply be concluded that "Iranians no longer like a certain type of name". Renaming usually happens slowly and multi-layered.

A name can be a sign of religion, nationality, ethnicity, family memory, or taste, but it may also just be a choice that parents find cute or cute. In fact, it might be better to consider the name not as an "identity label" but as a means of expressing identity.

How did "specialness" become a value?

In recent years, one of the phrases heard a lot when choosing a name is "proper name". Being special does not necessarily mean being strange or unknown. For one family, the particular name may be an authentic Persian name, for another a less-heard religious name, and for another a short international name.

A study published in Jamiat magazine, affiliated to the civil registration organization, has investigated various factors affecting the choice of name by examining a sample of parents in Qain city. This research was published in 1401 and its sample was limited to the same study, so its results cannot be generalized to all Iranian families. However, its findings are interesting: religious tendencies, choice of name by other children of the family, devotion to a character, special and unique name, religious occasions, ease of pronunciation, influence of media and attention to ancient Iranian names have been among the reported factors.

That is, even in a limited sample, "good name" does not just mean a beautiful name, a set of family and social considerations are involved in its selection.

Factors affecting the choice of name can be analyzed in categories such as religious beliefs, meaning of the name, personal beliefs of the couple, freshness and uniqueness of the name, being Iranian, family opinion, fashion and "classy" and the influence of the media. Researchers have also mentioned "religious identity", "national identity" and "maintaining the class and social class of the family" as some possible consequences of choosing a name.

Name, a "business card" before entering the society?

Perhaps one of the most interesting changes in naming culture is that today's parents, in some cases, are thinking not only of the child's past but also of the child's future.

A name that is easy to pronounce, can be used in social networks, is compatible with the family name, or requires less explanation in an international environment, may be more attractive to some parents. In such situations, the name can act like a kind of "symbolic capital", that is, something that creates associations about its owner, although these associations are not definite and identical. From this point of view, choosing a name can also be a kind of "parental prediction about the future".

When we talk about popular names in Iran, we should be aware of a common statistical mistake: the most frequent name in the entire population is not necessarily the most popular name among babies today.

For example, if a name exists among millions of the country's adult population, this shows that that name has been very common in the past few decades, but to understand the taste of the new generation, one should look at the statistics of the registration of babies in a certain year or period. Therefore, the list of the most frequent names of the Iranian population cannot be introduced as "the taste of today's parents" without explanation.

To see the importance of the social context of names, you can go to "Muhammad". In a report published on December 5, 2024, the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced that, based on birth registration data for 2023, Muhammad was the number one boy's name in England and Wales for the first time. This name ranked second in 2022 and was among the top ten names for boys since 2016.

The importance of this example for the discussion of Iran is here: a single name can find different social meanings in two societies. In Iran, Muhammad can be a sign of religious affiliation, family tradition or historical reference for a family. In Britain, in addition to religious meaning, the same name can also be linked to preserving cultural heritage in a multicultural society for some families.

Therefore, the popularity of a name does not give us complete information about the society without knowing who, under what circumstances and with what motivation. None of them can be considered as a definite sign of an attitude without knowing the context of the family.

Names may be a "silent poll".

If we want to draw a social result from naming, perhaps it is better to say that names can be one of the soft and indirect indicators of cultural changes instead of claiming that "Iranian society has become like this".

In this view, the baby name is something of a "silent poll," not a poll with which to calculate a percentage of people's attitudes, but a series of small choices that, when added together over time, may make cultural changes visible.

A parent who chooses a religious name is not necessarily a traditionalist, just as choosing an ancient name does not necessarily mean opposing religion, and choosing a modern or international name is not necessarily a sign of breaking with Iranian identity.

But the juxtaposition of thousands and millions of choices can raise important questions: What is "authentic" for parents? What is considered "special"? Which names seem old and which are making a comeback? How much does the media play in this cycle? And most importantly, what future are parents naming their child for today? Ultimately, naming is perhaps more about the image a generation has of its "ideal man" than about a few letters on a birth certificate.

Names change slowly, but their changes can give clues to deeper, quieter changes in society. Therefore, if we are to read the culture of today's Iran from the daily choices of the people, perhaps one of the places to ponder is the place where a family hesitated between several names before the birth of their child. The child has not arrived yet, but choosing his name can be a part of the conversation of today's generation with the past, present and future.