The Role and Meaning of Middle Names

Baby names are in inexhaustible cultural text. They're a way to talk about class, race, and gender, of course — but also the way we perform familial respect and coherence. In this episode, sociologist Hannah Emery — who wrote her dissertation on baby names — joins us to talk about the history of baby names, how naming conventions and aspirations have changed over the last century, and the broad and specific requests parents bring to her as a naming consultant. It's all fascinating — and I can't wait to continue the conversation (about our names and the names of the children in our lives) in the comments.

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Show Notes:

• You can find Hannah's fascinating name newsletter here (Try starting with this piece on middle names)

• I put Melody's name graph up top but here's mine (you can find yours for the U.S. here)

• The Top U.S. Names of 2025 According to BabyCenter:

• This made me laugh

  We're currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• HILARY DUFF!!! The comeback, the new album, let's talk about all of it — with Hilary Duff expert/forever-fan ALLIE JONES (also Melody loves Hilary Duff so much and will be very sad if we don't get enough questions for this episode)

• Dark academia — the trends, the themes, the popularity, whatever you want (for an episode with R.F. Kuang!)

• Conversion Therapy (how it affects people late into life, how it still exists, etc. etc.)

• Your Parent(s) Died — How Do You Deal with All This PAPERWORK and bureaucracy??? (with death doula Becky Robison)

• KID INFLUENCERS — what happens when your parent puts you on camera before you can really consent? We're talking with the author of a new book about the ramifications of growing up within these worlds — it's gonna be so good.

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

  For this week’s discussion: What names still bewilder you? Let's talk about them!