Modets växlingar hos förnamn i Norden

Bengt Sigurd, Mats Eeg-Olofsson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Thanks to name statistics published by the national bureaus of statistics in Scan­dinavia it is possible to study the changing popularity of first names. This paper is based on statistics from the years 1998-2002 in Sweden, 1998-2000 in Finland and 1880-2000 in Norway. The rise and fall in popularity — and in some cases renaissance — of individual names are shown and analyzed.It is observed that out of the 30 most common names generally 26 to 29 names remain in the lists each year. It is then possible to calculate the theoretical num­ber of names remaining after 2 years, 3 years, etc. using an exponential function (30*kAt), where k is a retention coefficient which for the 30 most common names varies between ca 0,90 and 0,97 (most conservative). This function makes it possible to estimate (although with uncertainty) how many years have elapsed between two lists on the basis of the number of common names.Some names reappear after about 120 years as is shown by the Norwegian data and one may suggest a theoretical model based on successive sinus curves with a period of ca 120. The frequency development of the individual names, however, often show a curve with a fast rise followed by a slow fall. Such curves can be approximated by a frequency function based on the gamma distribution (see Sigurd, Eeg-Olofsson & van de Weijer, 2004) as we demonstrate.
Original languageSwedish
Pages (from-to) 209-225
Number of pages17
JournalArkiv för nordisk filologi
Volume119
Publication statusPublished - 2004

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

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