Taking Stock of the Evidence for the Gender-Equality Paradox in Gendered Names: A Reply to Berggren (2023) with New Data

Abstract

A phonetic feature called voicing has been shown to reflect the gendering of names. Vishkin et al. leveraged this insight to examine gender differentiation as a function of increasing gender equality, both across historical time and across the 50 United States. In this reply, I address a wide range of criticisms raised by Berggren on these findings. I begin by presenting novel data from 76+ million baby names in France from 1900 to 2021. Findings converge with Berggren’s conclusion that the historical trend of voicing of female names is nonlinear and therefore cannot be fully accounted for by the monotonic increase of gender equality. However, I show the state-level analysis is robust to his critiques. I conclude that there are more gendered names in more gender-equal societies at the state level, even though the historical data does not shed light on the historical development of this phenomenon.