FirstNames {psychotools}

Popularity of First Names

Description

Preferences of 192 respondents choosing among six boys names with respect to their popularity.

Usage

data("FirstNames")

Format

A data frame containing 192 observations on 11 variables.

preference

Paired comparison of class paircomp. All 15 pairwise choices among six boys names: Tim, Lucas, Michael, Robin, Benedikt, and Julius.

ordered.pref

Ordered paired comparison of class paircomp. Same as preference, but within-pair order is recognized.

gender

Factor coding gender.

age

Integer. Age of the respondents in years.

education

Ordered factor. Level of education: 1 Hauptschule with degree (Secondary General School), 2 and 3 Realschule without and with degree (Intermediate Secondary School), 4 and 5 Gymnasium without and with degree (High School), 6 and 7 Studium without and with degree (University).

children

Integer. Number of children.

state

Factor. State of Germany where participant grew up.

state.reg

Factor. The region (south, north-west, east) each state belongs to.

fname

Factor. Participant's fist name(s). (Umlaute in Jörg and Jürgen have been transliterated to Joerg and Juergen for portability of the data.)

interviewer

Factor. Interviewer id.

gender.int

Factor coding interviewer's gender.

Details

A survey was conducted at the Department of Psychology, Universität Tübingen, in June 2009. The sample was stratified by gender and age (younger versus older than 30 years) with 48 participants in each group. The interviewers were Psychology Master's students who collected the data for course credits.

Participants were presented with 15 pairs of boys names in random order. On each trial, their task was to choose the name they would rather give to their own child. The pairs of boys names were read to the participants one at a time. A given participant compared each pair in one order only, hence the NA's in ordered.pref.

The names were selected to fall within the upper (Tim, Lucas), mid (Michael, Robin) and lower (Benedikt, Julius) range of the top 100 of the most popular boys names in Germany in the years from 1990 to 1999 (https://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/3778-1990er-jahre.htm). The names have either front (e, i) or back (o, u) vowels in the stressed syllables. Phonology of the name and attractiveness of a person have been shown to be related (Perfors, 2004; Hartung et al., 2009).

References

Hartung F, Klenovsak D, Santiago dos Santos L, Strobl C, Zaefferer D (2009). Are Tims Hot and Toms Not? Probing the Effect of Sound Symbolism on Perception of Facial Attractiveness. Presented at the 31th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, July 27–August 1, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Perfors A (2004). What's in a Name? The Effect of Sound Symbolism on Perception of Facial Attractiveness. Presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, August 5–7, Chicago, USA.

See Also

paircomp

Examples

data("FirstNames", package = "psychotools")
summary(FirstNames$preference)
covariates(FirstNames$preference)