The growing number of given names as a clue to the beginning of the demographic transition in Europe

Cultural factors are usually considered to have played a crucial role in the reduction in neonatal and infant mortality during the demographic transition; however, so far historical demographers have failed to produce precise measurements of their impact. This article introduces a new measure: the n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Demographic research 2021-07, Vol.45, p.187-220
Main Authors: Minello, Alessandra, Dalla-Zuanna, Gianpiero, Alfani, Guido
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
19th century
Analysis
Care and treatment
Children
Cultural factors
Demographic transition
Demographic transition theory
Demographics
Event history analysis
Forecasts and trends
Health aspects
historical demography
Historical perspectives
Infant mortality
Infants
mortality
name
Names
Neonates
Parishes
Patient outcomes
Personal names
Research Article
Social aspects
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Summary:Cultural factors are usually considered to have played a crucial role in the reduction in neonatal and infant mortality during the demographic transition; however, so far historical demographers have failed to produce precise measurements of their impact. This article introduces a new measure: the number of given names. We show the existence of a connection between the number of names given to a newborn and neonatal survival in 19th-century Europe. The article makes use of information from the CHILD database, focusing on six urban parishes in northeastern Italy, 1816-1865. We carried out a continuous-time event history analysis looking at neonatal transition to death. We show that the habit of assigning to the newborn a growing number of names spreads over time. Among the children with a single name neonatal mortality remains high and constant throughout the fifty years analyzed, while it halves among the children with two names and it decreases three times among children with three or more names. The kind of information we use is available also for other world areas, and we provide some evidence for this trend in France.
ISSN:1435-9871
2363-7064
1435-9871
DOI:10.4054/DemRes.2021.45.6