Naming of Children

Every researcher has a topic that he thinks is exremely interesting but has somehow been overlooked and underappreciated by others. My research on how people choose names for their children is that topic for me. I have studied how the strategies people use when choosing names for their children are influenced by evolutionary predispositions to assure fathers of paternity, to advertize relatedness to kin, and to position the child for future favors.

I am a member of the "People's Names Research Network."

PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS

McAndrew, F. T. , & Sbai, Z. (2024 - IN PRESS). Perceptions of the personalities of namesaked children as a function of their gender and birth order. Psychological Reports, 126(5),

(Also presented as a poster at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (virtual), San Francisco, February, 2022).

McAndrew, F. T. (2022). The namesaking of children as a strategy for managing kin relations and bonding fathers to their children. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 16 (3), 220-228.

McAndrew, F.T. (2021, January 14). How do we name adopted children? In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F.T. (2020, October 5). Why the choice of your child's name matters so much. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

Bird, A. E., & McAndrew, F. T. (2019). Does namesaking a child influence attachment style? North American Journal of Psychology, 21, 39-44. (Also presented as a poster at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Portland, Oregon, February, 2019)

McAndrew, F.T. (2015, August). Mama's baby, Papa's, MAYBE: Baby names and fathers' anxieties. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F.T., King, J.C., & Honoroff, L.R. (2002). A Sociobiological Analysis of Namesaking Patterns in 322 American Families. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 851-864.

McAndrew, F.T.(1996, September). Evolutionary Psychology and the Naming of Children. Keynote address delivered at the Annual Congress of the Psychological Society of South Africa, Johannesburg.

McAndrew, F.T., and King, J.C.(1995, June). Birth Order and the Naming of Children: An Examination of Naming as a Strategy of Parental Investment. Paper presented at the meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Santa Barbara, CA.

Johnson, J.L., McAndrew, F.T., & Harris, P.B.(1991). Sociobiology and the naming of adopted and natural children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 12, 365-375. (Formerly Ethology and Sociobiology)