The Importance of Not Being Johnny or Mary. Naming Practices and Child Mortality during the Demographic Transition

Gianpiero Dalla-Zuanna, University of Padova
Alessandra Minello, University of Padova

Naming practices play an essential role, serving as markers of patterns in migration, mobility, marriage, social identity, and demographic assimilation. Recent studies have shown a strong link between onomastic practices during the demographic transition and a decline in fertility. We examine whether changes in naming practices – from traditional names repeated over time, to a broader variety of rapidly changing names – were associated with varying risks of child and neonatal mortality for boys and girls in Veneto and in the parish of San Marco (Venice) during 1816-1869. The results of the Cox models for five-year mortality show a higher mortality for girls with traditional names and – in San Marco – a higher mortality for boys with the same name as their godfather and grandfathers. Moreover, neonatal mortality is significantly higher in Veneto for children who are assigned the five most frequent names, and for children who are assigned the two most frequent names (John and Mary). The mortality differences associated with given names are more pronounced than those typically observed for variables like parents' work position in differential analysis.

Keywords: Mortality and Longevity, Historical Demography

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