An Abundance of Katherines: The Game Theory of Baby Naming

2024/03/31 by Katy Blumer, Blumer, Katy, Kate Donahue +15 · 6 voices
Social Sciences · #Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research #cs.CY #cs.GT

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.00732

openalex publication_date 2024/03/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In this paper, we study the highly competitive arena of baby naming. Through making several Extremely Reasonable Assumptions (namely, that parents are myopic, perfectly knowledgeable agents who pick a name based solely on its uniqueness), we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world. We then extend our investigation with numerical experiments, as well as analysis of large language model tools. We conclude by discussing avenues for future research.

Discussions

• An abundance of Katherines: The game theory of baby naming [hn, 288 points, 148 comments]
• There's a paper about the Katherine phenomenon arxiv.org/abs/2404.00732 [bsky, 3 points, 2 comments]
• arxiv.org/abs/2404.00732 [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]
• Can’t believe that I hadn’t shared this wonderful #paper from last year – start by looking at the list of authors 😄: “An Abundance Of Katherines: The Game Theory Of Baby Naming” [2024], Katy Blumer, [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• An abundance of Katherines: The game theory of baby naming (arxiv.org) Main Link | Discussion [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• This is wonderful and funny arxiv.org/abs/2404.00732 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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