THE CONVERSATION — A given name holds the spark of identity. It is ours — we wear it — yet it is also the primary label by which others know us. Names are inherently both personal and public.
Some choices are idiosyncratically memorable. Two of Elon Musk’s children are named X Æ A-Xii and Exa Dark Sideræl. Recent name registrations in Alberta include Coyote, Rebel and Teal’C.
More broadly, these parental choices for baby names reflect a shifting cultural pattern. Even choices that appear eccentric are linked to a wider societal drive stressing individual distinctiveness.
Over time, Canadian naming has changed from collective identity to deliberate personal expression.
As a sociologist who has studied the cultural patterns in the given names of Canadians, I know they make an unusually good record of social change. Parents choose them deliberately and they are registered every year, so they reveal cultural shifts almost as they happen.
Names once followed faith and fathers
A century ago, Tom, Dick and Harry were among the most common names for Canadian boys. Back then, the most popular boys’ names were shared far more widely than the most popular girls’ names. Many boys carried the names of biblical heavyweights like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Religious texts named women far less often, though Mary was a notable exception, and for decades it dominated. In Ontario, Marie or Mary was the leading girls’ name from at least 1917, when existing records began.
In 1954 alone, 2,776 Marys were born. That dominance lasted into the early 1960s. Then came a long, steep decline. By 2020, fewer than 0.1 per cent of Ontario girls were named Mary.
The 1951 census shows almost every Canadian reported a religious affiliation. In both 1961 and 1971, five per cent of Canadians reported none. After 1971, the trend in non-religious affiliation grew steadily, reaching just over one-third in 2021.
While spiritual references endure, they often take modernized, individualistic forms. Nevaeh, “heaven” spelled backward, has outranked Mary in Canada through most of the 2000s. In 2023, Ontario recorded 44 Marys and 66 Nevaehs.
Beyond religion, patriarchy also anchored naming traditions, with generations of sons carrying the given names of their fathers and grandfathers. While daughters were occasionally named after their mothers, the practice occurred far less frequently than father-son pairings.
Standing out became the goal
Historically, girls’ names have shown greater variety and individuality. Starting in earnest during the 1950s, boys’ names also began reflecting greater distinctiveness.
By the 2020s, as expressive individualism continued its rise, the number of widely shared names collapsed. Today, the share of children with a common name has reached a historic low, with both genders displaying comparable levels of name uniqueness.
Alberta’s registry shows the scale of the change. In 1980, 39,630 babies were recorded, sharing 5,445 names. By 2025, 52,907 newborns shared 14,706 given names. The number of births rose by about one-third while the number of unique names nearly tripled.
Because names multiplied faster than babies, fewer children share any given name. In 1980, the top 10 names were shared by 22.5 per cent of boys and 18.5 per cent of girls. By 2025 those numbers had plummeted to 6.3 per cent for boys and 5.2 per cent for girls.
Spelling differences is another way to signal distinction, to stand out. Parents frequently express a child’s uniqueness through creative variations of a name. Since the 1920s, Mary has branched into variants that include Marie, Marylin, Marylyn, Maryam, MaryAnn, Mary-Jane, Marylou and Rosemary.
The most remarkable phonetic cluster may be Caitlin, which, across various years also appears as Caitlyn, Kaitlyn, Catelyn, Katelyn, Katelynn, Katlyn, Kaytlyn, Kaytlynn, Khaitlyn, Caitlynn, Catlyn, Caytlin, Caytlyn, Catelynn, Keitlyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlynn, Kaetlyn, Caetlyn, Kaitlyne, Caitlyne, Katelyne, Kaytleyn and Caithlyn.
But, of course, growing cultural diversity is also a big driver not just wanting to stand out. Where it was once common for immigrant families to select traditional anglophone or francophone names to encourage more rapid assimilation for their children, contemporary practices now often use given or middle names to maintain explicit ties to ancestral homelands.
For example, Muhammad now ranks 20th in the list of most common names given to boys. Although not yet ranking among the top 20 shared names for girls, Fatima and Asees are among the fastest-rising non-western names.
Beyond the boy-girl divide
Names have also traditionally served to distinguish between boys and girls.
Anthropologist Richard Alford found that, cross-culturally, names almost invariably conveyed the child’s sex assigned at birth. In Canada, however, the post-1990 rise of gender-neutral names marks a structural departure from this binary assignment.
Why such an abrupt change occurred around 1990 remains interesting. One explanation points to generational change: some parents born in the 1960s and later, Generation X in particular, took cues from the women’s liberation movement and charted a less gender-defined path for their children.
While minor mid-century exceptions existed for androgynous names — such as Beverly or Dale — names like Avery, Charlie and Riley have climbed rapidly in recent decades. By 2025, roughly eight to 10 per cent of Canadian children were given gender-ambiguous first names.
All of these changes in Canadian given names illustrate broad noteworthy cultural developments.
Shifts in naming reveal an erosion, but not an elimination, of religious, gendered and patriarchal traditions. What has changed is the balance: more parents now treat a name less as an inheritance and more as a statement. Tracking those choices reveals both how far Canadian culture has shifted and when.
The Author
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia
The Conversation
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