First names and social distinction: Middle-class naming practices in Australia. (September 2017)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- First names and social distinction: Middle-class naming practices in Australia. (September 2017)
- Main Title:
- First names and social distinction: Middle-class naming practices in Australia
- Authors:
- Lindsay, Jo
Dempsey, Deborah - Abstract:
- Naming practices provide a novel way to explore contemporary gender and class processes in Australia. Names are important everyday symbols of social location and signify family history, gender, class, ethnicity and religion. In an individualised society a name is the ultimate personal 'brand' and is used to locate children in social space. In this article we draw on qualitative interviews with 41 parents to focus on class and gender distinctions in naming practices. Naming a child was considered to be an important responsibility and names were viewed as central to identity and social classification. Through our exploration of naming preferences and judgements by middle-class parents, contemporary processes of social distinction come to light. Discussion of name choices illustrated parental aspirations and fears and the drawing of symbolic class-, gender- and sexuality-based cultural boundaries in Australia.
- Is Part Of:
- Journal of sociology. Volume 53:Number 3(2017)
- Journal:
- Journal of sociology
- Issue:
- Volume 53:Number 3(2017)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 53, Issue 3 (2017)
- Year:
- 2017
- Volume:
- 53
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2017-0053-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 577
- Page End:
- 591
- Publication Date:
- 2017-09
- Subjects:
- Bourdieu -- class -- families -- gender -- names -- sociology of the family < Family -- symbolic capital
Sociology -- Periodicals
Sociology -- Australia -- Periodicals
301.05 - Journal URLs:
- http://JOS.sagepub.com/ ↗
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/home.nav ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org ↗
http://www.ingenta.com/journals/browse/sage/jos ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1177/1440783317690925 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1440-7833
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 10526.xml