Ease of Articulation in Selecting First Names

Abstract

Investigating the ease of articulation in selecting names contributes to emphasizing the effect of articulatory features on speech perception and production. It explains why some names are distinctive among multi-semantic references and sociocultural dominance and are more likely appropriate for one sex than the other. This study explores how distinctive features of phonemes subconsciously derive our conception of first names, regardless of rich meanings or morphological endings. It argues that all selected names demonstrate articulatory-easy phonemes. Sex distinction is assumed to attribute phonemes of easier configurations to characterize girl names more than boy names. By inspecting a sample that exhibited no feminine suffixes or compounding structures, the study analyzed the phonemic components based on the articulatory-ease module. The findings justified equivalent preference of boy names and girl names to the ease of bilabial, coronal, voiceless features, and disyllabic structures. However, interest in names with easier anterior coronal sonorants, posterior distributed strident and glottal dominated the selected girl names in line with sound symbolism. Moreover, prominent everlasting names indicated a mechanism of articulatory ease that identified one essential unit to develop a unique smooth flow of phonemes. The distinctive characteristic features of this unit marked sex distinction and determined popularity. KEYWORDS articulatory mechanism, articulatory module, conserving effort, distinctive features, prominent names, sound symbolism