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• The Swedish language conventionally separates female and male first names respectively. Previous research from Sweden, as well as other cultures, shows that first names for girls and boys are chosen in partly separate ways with a desire for separate characteristics and structures, in a way that often contributes to traditional gender stereotyping. When parents choose to create a completely new name for the child, they have an opportunity to use new structural and semantic patterns and thus may negotiate the traditional gender boundaries. This article investigates newly created first names in Sweden in order to explore to what extent and in what ways parents do this. The data consists of 226 newly created first names registered by SCB (Statistics Sweden) for children born in 2012. The overall conclusion is that the newly created names generally still express gender and recreate stereotypical gendered patterns contributing to symbolic dominance. When gender negotiation occurs, it is primarily in boys’ names.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

first names

gender

gender roles

symbolic dominance

invented names

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)