A third of kids now want to be YouTubers instead of astronauts and half of those kids will probably be named after firearms rather than grandparents. In our technologically advanced society, we're obsessed with reinventing everything - except for one really boring invention that wasn't allowed to change until its creator died.
Career Dreams: From Space to Screens
LEGO asked kids what they want to be when they grow up and a third chose YouTuber over astronaut. The allure of becoming the next online sensation has officially outclassed the dream of exploring space, which is either a damning indictment of modern culture or just kids being realistic about which career path actually pays.
Meanwhile, a Polish-Oxford study confirmed something we already know: aspiring influencers score high in extroversion, openness, and narcissism. At least astronauts needed to be smart, fit, and brave. Now kids just need good lighting and a willingness to humiliate themselves for likes.
Baby Names: The New Cultural Battleground
Baby names have become a political statement that reveals more about parents than their children. Surprisingly, Blue state families in the USA lean toward traditional, religiously significant names like Rachel, Muhammad, and Santino. Red state parents on the other hand are flinging tradition to the wind with names like Gunner and Baylor, often with creative spelling variations that will forever be the bain of their existence.
During the French Revolution, people abandoned traditional names for dramatic alternatives like "La Grenade" (literally meaning Grenade) or "Mort aux Aristocrats" (Death to Aristocrats). Nowadays, descendants of immigrants and native families alike are choosing names with international appeal. As more parents acknowledge that their children are growing up in an interconnected world, names that transcend ethnic and religious boundaries are becoming more popular.
The Brannock Device: The Most Boring Invention
You know that metal foot-measuring device you see in shoe stores? Well, Charles Brannock invented it in the early 1900s and he was so committed to quality that he refused to sell his company during his lifetime.
The Brannock device is possibly the most boring invention ever created. It’s a metal contraption that measures feet (yawn) yet Brannock was so passionate about it that he refused every buyout offer for decades. Maybe he had the psychological traits required to become a famous YouTuber.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 The Brannock Device: A Boring Invention?
02:02 The Evolution of Shoe Measurement
06:15 The Rise of YouTubers and Influencers
07:58 Personality Traits of Aspiring Influencers
13:30 Culture Wars and Baby Names
15:31 Homogenisation of Names in the 20th Century
17:26 Red State vs. Blue State Baby Names
25:10 International Names are the New Trend
SOURCES:
https://www.nancy.cc/2011/09/09/revolution-france-baby-names/
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/russias-revolutionary-names-live-on-100-years-later-121547
https://nameberry.com/blog/the-reddest-and-bluest-baby-names#google_vignette
https://web.archive.org/web/20030302052852/http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/brannock.htm
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[00:00:00] Will: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:17] Rod: and I'm Rod Lambert. I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy.
[00:00:23] Will: and today. Well, we've been at the Beach Large Hadron Collider.
[00:00:27] Rod: Yeah. Drinking in swimming cocktails. In fact, I'm still there. I dunno where you
[00:00:32] Will: are of, uh, isotopes and science and stuff like that. So rather than giving you our regular pile of science, we've
[00:00:39] Rod: saved you something delicious. We've been scrolling away little snippets throughout the millennium and you're gonna get a bunch of those right now.
[00:00:46] It's gonna be fab.
[00:00:47] Will: Enjoy.
[00:00:52] Rod: So here's a boring invention. The Brannock device.
[00:00:55] Will: The brannock, oh, I love things called the device.
[00:00:58] Rod: So
[00:00:58] Will: because could be a medical instrument, it could be, it could be. It could be something astronomical like you, you, you're measuring
[00:01:05] Rod: Oh, you mean as in huge, your AstroLabs.
[00:01:06] Will: AstroLabs?
[00:01:07] Rod: astro labia I is the
[00:01:08] Will: indeed. It could be something like that. Uh,
[00:01:13] Rod: those are all your guesses so far.
[00:01:14] Will: Brannock device. is it Scottish? Is it, is it for measuring the length of a kilt? Oh, that's just, I'm just being length of
[00:01:19] Rod: of a kilt. Um, a gentleman does not measure one's kilt length because it could have
[00:01:24] Will: implications. I don't think you get your kilt trained to the length of your dick. I, I, I don't think
[00:01:30] Rod: don't know anything about my kilt? Okay. It's an industry standard measuring tool.
[00:01:35] Will: Oh,
[00:01:36] Rod: You got a final guess? Any inkling?
[00:01:38] Will: So gimme the close again.
[00:01:39] Rod: So no one's heard of it.
[00:01:41] Heaps of people have used it or had it used on them or for them. It's an industry standard measuring tool. It's been around for it hundred ish years.
[00:01:49] Will: so heaps of people know about like how use it. So they
[00:01:52] Rod: if I held one up, you'd go, oh yeah, of course I know what that
[00:01:55] Will: It's like for, it's like a, uh, for measuring a cup or something like that. Like it's a cooking thing and, and someone just said, I'm [00:02:00] gonna name, name it
[00:02:01] Rod: in that realm, but not at all.
[00:02:02] Will: Uh,
[00:02:02] Rod: Okay, let's, uh, Charles Brannick, he
[00:02:05] Will: He invented it. All right. He
[00:02:06] Rod: Alright. He was born into the shoe business.
[00:02:09] Will: Mm.
[00:02:09] Rod: His father was obviously Otis Brannick. I know you knew that, but other people may not have. He joined with another guy. They, they founded in 1906 in Syracuse. The, uh, park Brannick shoe company.
[00:02:21] And Charles went on to run it, but he went to uni first, and at Uni, Syracuse Uni, he wanted to find the best way to measure the foot
[00:02:29] Will: aha.
[00:02:30] Rod: So when he got into the biz, the industry standard was this, as it was being put in many sources, a primitive block of wood with measurement lines on it, I suppose, called the Ritz capital, RITZ Ritz Stick
[00:02:43] Will: Ritz. Like from the hotel. They just got a
[00:02:45] Rod: all the crackers.
[00:02:46] Will: Yeah, sure.
[00:02:47] Rod: So he spent two years developing a simple means of measuring the length, width and arch girth and
[00:02:53] Will: And
[00:02:53] Rod: girth of the human foot.
[00:02:55] Will: So
[00:02:55] Rod: use an ector set, which everyone who lives not in America in the 1920s has no idea what that is. A building tool that isn't Lego. I think it's like mcc Yeah. Screws and, and, um, screwed drivers.
[00:03:09] He built a prototype of this, uh, ker device in the mid 1920s. He patented it and created a company to build it. So you know those machines when you go to the shoe store? Yeah. They pop your foot in it and they slide their little thing backwards and forwards and measure the length and width. That's the brannick device.
[00:03:23] Will: it. Wow.
[00:03:25] Rod: So apparently he dramatically, I know it's boring invention. He improved the accuracy of a foot measurement to about 96% accuracy, width, girth, and, uh, arch. And if you are boring, you ready? The system is one sort. The system is linear. For example, the men's size is one is seven and two thirds inches each additional size is one inch, one third inch.
[00:03:45] Longer width works the same way. Each width is separated by a distance of three 16th. Seven.
[00:03:51] Will: So, so what, what made you interested in this?
[00:03:54] Rod: Well, 'cause I didn't know it had a name, but also what, what I thought was interesting at first, people went, oh, this is cool [00:04:00] because it helps the local shoe store like more accurately and helpfully measure feet.
[00:04:05] People got excited, but it turns out, once word got out, got in high demand because, for example, in World War ii, the army hired him to make sure boots and shoes fitted, the enlisted men who were going off so they could remotely without having to have all these boots and try them all, they kind of go, okay, this is exactly the size they need.
[00:04:23] Do you,
[00:04:23] Will: know, do you know the, um, I, it might have been the American Civil War, is when they invented, uh, standardized clothes sizing. So before that you would have like bespoke, bespoke. everyone is bespoke.
[00:04:32] getting, you go to war and you get a tailored suit like that, that is
[00:04:36] Rod: now I'm interested,
[00:04:37] Will: I get it.
[00:04:38] Rod: I get it now I wanna go hand to
[00:04:39] Will: but, but then they were like, okay, you're a large, you're a small, you're a medium.
[00:04:42] Rod: Yeah. Off the rack. Made no sense before then. This is kind of similar. And it got to the point where there are machines now, there are branick devices adjusted for or tailored to men, women, athletic shoes, ski boots, children, et cetera. But they all have the same dimensions.
[00:04:56] Will: will they think of next? I
[00:04:57] Rod: I don't know. Well, actually what they did think of next. So right up until the eighties, so brand was getting pretty old by then. He'd go to the office every day, he'd work really hard. He took care of business,
[00:05:06] Will: to sell more of these things and
[00:05:08] Rod: them. And he was apparently a stickler for it should last for as long as possible, had to be made out metal.
[00:05:14] Like was real
[00:05:14] Will: They all, like, you go to whatever shop and the shop is brand new, but they've got one of these things and it's at at least 80
[00:05:19] Rod: you gotta do. It goes, I, I I hand sell shoes. He is like, oh, you go to Platypus online and just buy whatever you want. Um, but apparently he, he, he said, look, um, people wanted to buy the company.
[00:05:28] He said no, even though he is getting old, his health is failing. So no, I'm not gonna sell it unless they have to guarantee the device would not be cheapened. Or changed
[00:05:37] Will: who believes in the measurement of feet.
[00:05:39] Rod: the Brannick device must stay pure, must be metal, must be the same.
[00:05:43] So he died in 93. He was nearly 90. Company was purchased by a dude called S Leon.
[00:05:47] Will: Leoni. And now
[00:05:50] Rod: it is still the standard device for the footwear industry. More than a million devices get sold a year, very, very little. But nowadays, the new company who, uh, you know, or the new owners have [00:06:00] decided they're gonna start customizing models and they might do a digital
[00:06:03] Will: you do, you remember when I told you about the petto scope,
[00:06:06] petto scope was the threat.
[00:06:07] where you,
[00:06:08] You put your foot in a box and get it x-rayed to measure the. Measure things,
[00:06:13] Rod: Here's research. You'll be amazed by,
[00:06:15] Will: So 2019 Lego,
[00:06:17] Rod: commissioned a survey. 3000 children between eight and 12
[00:06:22] were surveyed from the us, uk, and China, and 326 parents who had children aged between five and 12. Mm-hmm.
[00:06:28] Will: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:29] Rod: Almost to the third of the kids in the survey said they wanted to be a YouTuber when they grew up
[00:06:33] Will: Uhhuh, Uhhuh, Uhhuh.
[00:06:35] Rod: and 11% roughly said they wanted to be an astronaut.
[00:06:38] So YouTuber slash influencer. Three to one compared to being an astronaut. This is children. Which kind of surprised me.
[00:06:45] Will: you. Well, no, astronauts don't get a lot of press. Yeah,
[00:06:48] Rod: Yeah. But it's space as opposed to, look, my lips have been
[00:06:52] Will: Katy Perry's gone to Space.
[00:06:53] Like space is kind of ruined now. Like it's, it,
[00:06:56] Rod: I mean
[00:06:57] Will: I mean, I love Katy Perry's, some of her
[00:06:59] Rod: her earlier work is a lot more cerebral and, and you know, musically
[00:07:02] Will: I just feel, I just feel, I'm sorry, astronauts. You're wonderful. Humans. You've done a lot of work.
[00:07:07] Rod: They haven't made it very interesting lately.
[00:07:09] You're right, you're right. Like what do you do as an astronaut? Well, I, I, I, I spin around the earth for four years by accident and then I come back down and I can't walk
[00:07:16] Will: And you know, you know the thing about astronauts is the thing, you have to be the most squared away person in the world whilst you're in space and, and it's like,
[00:07:24] Rod: well, as we covered an earlier episode, pays not great.
[00:07:26] Will: indeed.
[00:07:27] Rod: There's no overtime. You know, these people were surprised by this, but however, it depended whether they were Chinese, uk, or us. So more than half the kids from China wanted to be an astronaut.
[00:07:36] Will: Okay. So, so they're still a little bit, um, older
[00:07:39] Rod: Yeah. The Chinese kids are more interested in the, in the, the fun of Astronautics. Um, but in the US and the uk, yes, it was much, much lower. So this kind of surprised, the makers of Lego. But then a new study spun off from this, from the journal, which I'm sure you're fully aware of. Telematics and informatics. Researchers from Poland [00:08:00] and Oxford went, we're gonna dig deeper into this shit about this YouTuber business and this influencer stuff.
[00:08:04] Okay.
[00:08:05] Will: So the
[00:08:06] Rod: particularly interest in the traits of people who wanted to be influencers.
[00:08:09] Will: uh, did, you said it so it was a third of kids, so I think we'd be on traits
[00:08:13] Rod: an early year. Well still wanna know if there's characteristics because apparently, um. Research up until then talked about what people thought influencers were not the people who wanted to be them.
[00:08:23] Will: Okay?
[00:08:24] So
[00:08:24] Rod: they looked at the personality traits of 16 and 17 year olds and their career goals and dream jobs. Yep. 800 participants, roughly half were Polish. Yeah. Classic subject
[00:08:34] Will: subject.
[00:08:34] It's a, it's a place.
[00:08:35] Rod: The other half were Poms, sorry. United Kingdom Mites.
[00:08:39] They flug a bunch of questions at these, uh, teens about the career goals. They dream jobs, and they also gave 'em questionnaires that measured, you know, the big five personality traits,
[00:08:48] Will: the positive ones or the negative ones.
[00:08:49] Rod: They just traits, man, we don't judge here.
[00:08:52] Okay. We have never been judgemental here.
[00:08:53] Will: but there's the, there's the big three negatives.
[00:08:55] Rod: No, there's a big, well, the big five has been around since even I was studying psych back in the 18 hundreds. Openness,
[00:09:01] conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. And they,
[00:09:06] Will: Openness and agreeable.
[00:09:07] Rod: I like, I know that's you, right? All right, William Open agreeable Grant. So these are the five, the big five. These are classic throughout psychology all over the world. This is not controversial in the psychological realm, but they also measured how histrionic or dramatic these people were.
[00:09:21] Okay? So I'm gonna give you the hypothesis and, and shock you with the results. Yeah. Hypothesis one. Remember, we're talking about characteristics of people who want to be influencers in their careers. These are
[00:09:33] Will: Does this include podcasters?
[00:09:35] Rod: No, podcasting is a, uh, uh, a noble profession with a deep and rich
[00:09:40] Will: history.
[00:09:41] Rod: And also, my God, the number of houses we've been paying
[00:09:44] Will: off. This guy, man, this guy, like
[00:09:47] Rod: serious scholars here, hypothesis one extroversion is positively associated with motivation to become a social media
[00:09:57] Will: No, No.
[00:09:59] Rod: Hold, hold, hold [00:10:00] fire because this is controversial, right? Yeah. Hypothesis two.
[00:10:04] Openness to experience is positively associated with motivation to become a social media influencer. Shocked narcissism is positively associated with motivation to become a social media influencer, histrionic personality, the tendency to being dramatic. Also, they hypothesizes positively associated with motivation to become social media influencer.
[00:10:25] Which hypotheses were correct? The answer is yes. Every damn one. Okay. Every fucking damn
[00:10:30] one. Okay.
[00:10:32] Shocked. Okay. Shocked. I tell you,
[00:10:35] Will: when do I get to critique this study?
[00:10:36] Rod: Whenever you want.
[00:10:37] Will: right. No, you finish your bits and tonight
[00:10:39] Rod: I, I just, I just love that the summaries, you know, oh, researchers found those with heightened extroversion, heightened narcissism and histrionics. We're more likely to be interested in the influencer of life. And you're like, oh, oh, these trades correlate with the desire to be seen and validated by others much in the same way as theater kids.
[00:10:56] No,
[00:11:01] it's not research. It's just like it's fucking odd. No,
[00:11:05] Will: No, but I do like, I do like any sentence in your conclusion or your discussion that ends in much the same as theater kids. Like I feel like if, if I could get that into half of my papers.
[00:11:15] Rod: a technical term.
[00:11:16] Will: Too
[00:11:16] much the same as theater
[00:11:18] Rod: You know, theater kids love you,
[00:11:24] Theater kids, It's freaking
[00:11:26] Will: you, are the glue that will save the world.
[00:11:29] Rod: It's just, I think it's gold. And apparently there's been quite a bit of research on how audiences perceive the personalities of such folk, but not about them themselves. but they also note at the end here, it's look to become one, wanting to be one and to become one is not exactly, you know, a slam dunk.
[00:11:44] If you want to be one, that doesn't mean you can be,
[00:11:47] Will: I I can understand that you can, you can, you can psychology this, you can, in the same way as you could. Psychology a whole range of professions. You know, we know that, uh, people who wanna be CEOs Or presidents may [00:12:00] have more, more narcissism.
[00:12:01] They may
[00:12:02] Rod: maybe hints of sociopathy.
[00:12:04] Will: They, they might be sociopaths and psychopaths. So there, so there are trends in, in professions all the time. I don't doubt if you, if you look at nurses for example, there, there will be a tolerance. Sociopathy, no, unlikely. You know, there'll be a tolerance for the grossness of other people.
[00:12:19] But there will also be.
[00:12:21] Rod: desire for,
[00:12:22] Will: but I just, I just, I just think this idea, a third of people wanna be influencers. that's a profession that they see perhaps more than a lot of other professions. Yeah. So it's not that surprising.
[00:12:31] Yeah. But also, it's a profession that they, you know, we see the very heightened version of them. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the ones that are the most successful, who are doing a lot of world travel, going to interesting places. Doing interesting things, talking to interesting people, whatever, whatever it is, and trying out cool products.
[00:12:47] So it's, it's not surprising.
[00:12:49] Rod: Oh, of course. So, and what you want
[00:12:50] Will: to,
[00:12:50] and, and in fact it's not that far off. You know, the Katy Perry going to space that influence
[00:12:55] Rod: the edge of space.
[00:12:56] Will: so they will be doing the things that astronauts, aim to do.
[00:12:59] It's just that astronauts have to do all of the shit hard work. Work and, and well, not saying influencers don't have to do work. They, they do,
[00:13:06] I don't
[00:13:07] Rod: kind of work. Different
[00:13:07] Will: They do hard work, but, uh,
[00:13:09] Rod: yeah.
[00:13:09] Will: I think it's not that surprising.
[00:13:11] Rod: Nothing about this is surprising.
[00:13:13] Like, I read this and thought, seriously, you did it I get it. Not all research has to be veary, but this really is like, what's the reverse of veary? I mean, it's just like, it's our dirt. The journal of no shit, Sherlock.
[00:13:23] Will: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:24] Rod: Anyway. there, there's some real information for you.
[00:13:26] That's research. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it didn't need to be done.
[00:13:30] Will: So I got a, um, some dispatchers from the, uh, culture wars.
[00:13:33] Rod: Uh, are they still going?
[00:13:34] Will: Uh, yes.
[00:13:35] Rod: thought we'd won.
[00:13:36] Will: Uh,
[00:13:36] Rod: lost.
[00:13:37] Will: lost.
[00:13:37] Rod: Who's we?
[00:13:38] Will: Uh, yeah. Well, it depends. It depends. one version says that they're always still going, you know? Mm-hmm. We are always at war with Eurasia. Mm-hmm. Another version says that some people lost and some people won.
[00:13:48] look, I've been, I've been fascinated with this story for ages, and it just, it just, it's always interested me,
[00:13:54]
[00:13:55] Will: because it's something that doesn't matter, but it does matter.
[00:13:58] Rod: You blow my mind, man,
[00:13:59] Will: baby [00:14:00] names.
[00:14:00] Rod: Oh, I love this.
[00:14:01] Will: So, so of course it matters enormously.
[00:14:04] Yeah. You, you choose your kid's name and that's the thing they bear for the rest of their life. It's, it's, it's,
[00:14:08] Rod: I spook my, uh, my side hustle that we've talked about before?
[00:14:11] Will: Go, go.
[00:14:12] Rod: Or people who before you name your kid, particularly if you think it's a bit of a quirky name mm-hmm. You should send them the list of names to me, because I will punish them from every angle to find how kids will pick on them.
[00:14:22] Yeah. Okay. For that name. Yeah. I have a gift for this. Does
[00:14:25] Will: it rhyme with fart or
[00:14:26] Rod: Yeah. Or anything like I'll find things you never imagine. So if you send me the names plus, I don't know, let's say Bitcoin to the value of four or five Grand Australian. That'll do. I'll bulletproof it for you.
[00:14:36] Will: I, I actually think that would be, that would be a good service.
[00:14:40] I'm
[00:14:40] Rod: not terrible at it. I, I'm really not. Like, if you wanna find a way to abuse someone 'cause of their name, I'm your guy.
[00:14:44] Will: Well, I've got some names for you that you might, you might, uh,
[00:14:47] Rod: oh, the pressure's on.
[00:14:48] Will: you No, no, no. You will, you will see, interesting things about straightaway. what I was interested about is, um, there's a couple of, couple of things going on in the world in terms of baby names.
[00:15:01] Now, as I said, you know, they matter enormously to the kid. You know, you know, that's the thing that you bear. But they're completely arbitrary, you know, it's, it's like parents reach from the culture, reach from their brains and just go, here you go.
[00:15:12] Rod: movie they just saw
[00:15:13] Will: Yeah, yeah. Or, or where they're rooted. You know, it's, it's, this is what
[00:15:17] Rod: where they rooted. We're calling you back of the car. Parents were away
[00:15:22] Will: got one. I've got one that's not far from back of the car. It's, it's not, it's not, it's not back of the car. Okay. Um, but I don't doubt there is there,
[00:15:29] Rod: uh, condom broke.
[00:15:31] Will: but the first, first stat that I just wanted to point out is that, throughout the 20th century and, and this data is from the United States, but some of the other data I'll draw from comes from France and from, well, Russia, uh, and some other countries.
[00:15:46] But, um, in the 20th century. there was a sort of homogenization of names.
[00:15:51] Rod: Yep.
[00:15:51] Will: you know, like the top 10 list of, of names for the year. You know, whether it's Jennifer, Michael,
[00:15:56] Rod: I don't wanna be mean, but Is William one of them?
[00:15:58] Will: It probably was at some point. I, I [00:16:00] dunno where they were, but, you know, they change every year.
[00:16:02] But most kids would have a name that was from, the middle, like that you'd get heaps of people. Like if John's the most popular, you're getting, you're getting 80 or 90% all come from the sort of, the, the most common names that
[00:16:14] Rod: Yeah. Regression to the mean, but with names. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:17] Will: Yeah. By the 21st century, it's reversed. by 2020, only 7% of babies in the US were given a top 10 name. Really? so what we've done is
[00:16:26] Rod: so that means they're not top 10?
[00:16:28] Will: They're still top 10. They're still top 10, but they're just, they're just not as big. Like, say the name John in 1950 Yeah.
[00:16:35] Would've been super popular and they, and they
[00:16:37] Rod: 90% of Midwestern men,
[00:16:39] Will: I think it was 90% of men. in that year. Yeah. And that, say, if that was the top name, now, now don't quote those stats, but by 2020, yeah. The top name is much smaller. Like it's, it's, it's just,
[00:16:49] Rod: oh, it's still top, but by much smaller
[00:16:51] Will: There's, there's a whole long tail of other, other names out there. Now what's going on there? Some people reckon, okay, we used to all watch the same culture. we'd name ourselves, name the kids after the sitcoms or something like that. You know, here's the
[00:17:04] Rod: Doogie. Yeah.
[00:17:05] Will: Doogie.
[00:17:05] Yeah. Doogie,
[00:17:06] Rod: Opie.
[00:17:06] Will: cheers.
[00:17:08] Rod: That's it. This is my daughter friend.
[00:17:11] Will: Al but here's the thing. Some people are saying, okay, there's a split in the culture where people are, are not watching the same stuff. And now we, I,
[00:17:20] Rod: So the full pushback.
[00:17:21] Will: Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I've always been interested in, you know, this idea of Red State, blue State tv.
[00:17:26] Yeah. Um, and so people are naming baby names in a lot of different ways, but what I wanted to draw on is this was a, this was a great study that is looking at the difference between Red State and Blue State baby names.
[00:17:37] Rod: Oh, I'm very
[00:17:38] Will: excited. So, so there, there, there, there is of course, you know, a lot of overlap in the names, you know, you, yeah, sure.
[00:17:45] You probably get a lot of names
[00:17:46] Rod: You got your Chads and your Biffs and your
[00:17:49] Will: you might not Whitney, but this study looked in particular at particular names, uh, the most common names for boys and girls, uh, in red states versus blue states.
[00:17:58] Rod: this century. Like [00:18:00] recent,
[00:18:00] Will: Like recently? Yeah, recently. Um, so this study was 2024. Okay. So in the, in the last few years. Now there, there's some things that you wouldn't guess. so first of all, the blue state names are far more traditional. The blue, the blue state names interest, like the, the names that you're get getting here are
[00:18:17] Rod: So you're left leaning
[00:18:19] Will: technically left leaning.
[00:18:20] So these are, these are states that voted Democrat much more traditional, so they're choosing time honored names from, historical, religious, traditional sources. Yeah, so, well, the name that was most common in blue states and least common in red
[00:18:34] Rod: CAD wda,
[00:18:35] Will: Uh, no, it's, uh, Mossa, which is a, which is a Jewish name.
[00:18:38] Mossa.
[00:18:39] Rod: Mossa.
[00:18:39] Will: but then you get a bunch of other religious names. And here you can guess why Rachel, um, Muhammad, uh, Yusef. But then you get, you get other names like Santino and Kieran and things like that. So these are, these are, these are in the boys, in the, in the Bluest girl names. Uh, that, that pattern's a, a different pattern.
[00:18:54] We'll come to that in a sec. in the red states. Yeah,
[00:18:57] Rod: I'm very excited.
[00:18:59] Will: less care for tradition. And in fact, um, so in, in the, in the blue states, 70% of of the top names are from the Bible or the Koran. Or saints and religious figures. But in the red states,
[00:19:13] Rod: they're from like, um, instruction manuals for fixing your, your Ute.
[00:19:17] Will: y It totally is.
[00:19:17] It totally is. It totally is. So, so Red
[00:19:20] Rod: diff tires.
[00:19:21] Will: well, not far off gearbox. Uh, so what, what do we got here? Uh, this is, these are the most popular red state.
[00:19:29] Rod: is my boy Oke
[00:19:31] Will: Cohen, Baylor, uh, Stetson, trip Sutton, Briggs. gunner and baker Gunner. Like these, these, the red state names.
[00:19:39] they're turning surnames into
[00:19:41] Rod: yeah, I was gonna say surnames.
[00:19:42] Yeah.
[00:19:42] Will: They're picking gender neutral choices. Which is, which
[00:19:45] Rod: what the fuck,
[00:19:45] Will: which is weird. Their, their names are far more gen.
[00:19:48] Rod: Do, do they know that? not yet. Or do they just don't realize They're kinda like we, no, we picked, we picked three names. They could work.
[00:19:54] Will: they also, they red state names.
[00:19:56] You'd be surprised have given up on spelling. Like they have, they have a [00:20:00] whole bunch of different ways of spelling things. a lot, a lot of references to guns and military names. Like I think, uh, Remington and Navy were in the Navy. Uh, we're we're in the top
[00:20:10] Rod: is my boy M 16 for
[00:20:12] Will: for girls. there, there's a lot more, like in the, in the girl names, there's a lot of reference
[00:20:17] Rod: mind being called Koff.
[00:20:18] Will: Cnik.
[00:20:19] Rod: that sounds, it also sounds intellectual as well as a, what is a self-loading, repeating rifle that can murder heaps of people at once and they'd call you Kish.
[00:20:28] Will: But while I was looking through this, I was like, ah, you know, you know. this is only, baby culture war. this is America splitting into Red State and Blue State names, and they, they're, they're choosing different names.
[00:20:37] Yeah. Like the red states are choosing these, you know, these sort of non-traditional, but tough and different spelling and, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm Gunner, I'm Walker, I'm, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And, and Punch. Punch would be a,
[00:20:48] Rod: My name is Height. I'm strong.
[00:20:51] Will: I'm Girth. Girth. Well, the Blue states are choosing traditional names.
[00:20:57] Rod: I'm changing my name to Girth,
[00:20:58] Will: but I thought, you know, we could go back in time and look at some of the, some of the, the culture wars that went, went the whole hog. Um, so I've got some from the Soviet Union and the French Revolution,
[00:21:09] Rod: me, Soviet Union
[00:21:10] Will: and I was just like, oh, you guys are you guys. So my favorites, There's a bunch of these and, and I don't know how well they translate from Russian into, into English, but there is, uh, Voler Child of the Revolution or Ika that's basically the name of the five year plan. So you'd be called Five Year Plan. Oh,
[00:21:29] Rod: Jesus Christ. Submission to the Senate Review on, on r and d.
[00:21:34] Will: But, but a lot of them, a lot of them, there's a whole bunch of different versions where they take Mark's angles, Lenin, Stalin, and sort of mash them up. so there's a bunch of
[00:21:43] Rod: Max Angles
[00:21:44] Will: Yeah. There's, uh, 67-year-old, Mel's elusive of, he's from Kazakhstan. Mm-hmm. Mels is short for Mark's Angles.
[00:21:53] Lenin, Stalin.
[00:21:54] Rod: kind of makes sense.
[00:21:56] Will: Come
[00:21:56] Rod: Could be worse.
[00:21:57] Will: worse. Uh, well, it could be worse. There's Marlon, [00:22:00] which is a combination of Marks and Lenin as, as your first
[00:22:02] Rod: No, Mar Marlon is the brother of Harlan from, um, I Love You to Death. A, an excellent nineties movie.
[00:22:08] Will: Um. Mar Englin, mark Engles and, and Lenon very popular, um, in Albania in the 1950s.
[00:22:14] Sure. Um, there's also ot.
[00:22:15] Rod: ot,
[00:22:16] Will: Short for Marks, Engels, Lenon, Stalin, ENVA, Albania leader, and Tito. It's like, come on
[00:22:24] Rod: to get a look in. Come
[00:22:24] Will: on, man. But I, I had to go back to the French Revolution because, because they went mad for names. I think because like up until 70, 92, uh, there were religious traditions for naming.
[00:22:35] You know, you came out of the, you know, you're named for a saint or something like that on the day you were born, 1792, the day before. Um, they abolished the monarchy. They said, let's get rid of names as well. You can name yourself whatever you want. Just go, go out there.
[00:22:46] Rod: so people just went fucking
[00:22:48] Will: people all over France.
[00:22:49] Were just going, going mad.
[00:22:51] Rod: bag, I am called French.
[00:22:59] Will: Well, you can guess there's some straightforward ones. Like, there's people that are naming like Heroes of the Revolution. There's a, there's a, there's a child martyr called Joseph Barra. So a lot of people are calling themselves Barra. No. Or Brutus after the ancient Roman politician, Egal, you know, Liberty Egal.
[00:23:12] And there was a bunch of actually called that. Yeah, yeah. People call themselves egal.
[00:23:15] Rod: that a boy or a girl's name?
[00:23:17] Will: I'd say that's a girl, but I think, I think it could be both. that's gender neutral. I
[00:23:20] Rod: I don't mind. I'd take the name 'cause you could call me Eagle.
[00:23:22] Will: Eagle, eg.
[00:23:24] Eagle
[00:23:24] Rod: I should be called Eagle.
[00:23:27] Will: there's some long ones. Amo de Patria Landis. Sacred love of the Fatherland in the year three, fucking in, in the year three. Like
[00:23:37] Rod: Jesus Christ. Well look specific, like They're never gonna be like, my God, I can't believe that's your name too. What a coincidence there
[00:23:44] Will: was, um, decade, which is named for the 10 day week.
[00:23:47] They had a 10 day week for a little while in the French Revolution. And so
[00:23:50] Rod: No, no, we don't do decimal for
[00:23:51] Will: but, but I, I did like, LA Granade, which is for the grenade, like, hello, my daughter, LA Grenade.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Rod: So you got call him, boom, boom. Uh,
[00:24:02] Will: Uh, Mort aristocrats,
[00:24:04] kill, the kill the aristocrats, like who gives their kid that name?
[00:24:08] Like
[00:24:08] Rod: also very long. do they bang it all together to make it one word? Or is your name literally three words?
[00:24:14] Will: Well, I don't know. List.
[00:24:15] Rod: Is it like my, my first name is three words?
[00:24:18] Will: Yeah, but maybe you shorten to Morty or something like that. Morty. I don't dunno.
[00:24:22] Rod: But if you have to write it on your birth certificate, driver's license or whatever they did back then, so those three words, that's all your names, like, no, that's my first
[00:24:29] Will: Could be. Could be. Yeah. Well, it's not your last name, so it's gotta be difficult. It's gotta be it, it's difficult. It's a long first name. So there's many there like these American ones. There's your name, there's Kaylee and, and uh, Annabelle and
[00:24:38] Rod: which is nowhere near as long as crat
[00:24:41] It's also one word.
[00:24:45] Will: So look, there, there you go. I'm, I'm waiting for, the full culture war where people are start naming their kids, you know, death to the liberals.
[00:24:53] Rod: Fuck capitalism. Fuck
[00:24:54] Will: capitalism. Fuck capitalism. Name your kid. Fuck capitalism.
[00:24:56] Rod: not allowed though. I think you
[00:24:57] Will: get a hat. I will, I will send you a hat.
[00:24:59] Rod: Do you know what? I'll fucking make you a hat.
[00:25:01] Will: I'll make you a hat. I'll make
[00:25:02] Rod: me how big it is. You show me the size of your noggin and I'll make it outta my own body hair.
[00:25:07] Will: But there is a good side to this.
[00:25:09] Rod: which of It wasn't good already. No.
[00:25:10] Will: there, there's an interesting study in France recently while, um, we are seeing a split in American naming, like, it's like you call it a schmo genesis, where different groups of people are pulling further apart by choosing names that are totally different to each other, so you won't be identified.
[00:25:25] Is
[00:25:25] Rod: that the literal definition of Schmo Genesis?
[00:25:27] Will: Yeah, yeah, totally. That's what it says in the dictionary. but there was a study that, um, in France, by the third generation of, after immigration. so you get an immigrant, just a small fraction, like 23% still have names that you can identify from the ethnic community that you came from, from
[00:25:42] Rod: the mother or Fatherland,
[00:25:43] Will: uh, from the mother or father land.
[00:25:45] Right. But it's not just, on the immigrant side, it seems that both immigrants and natives are deliberately choosing what, what are called sort of like international names. Right. Um, so, There's an example. Sarah is a great one, Sarah.
[00:25:59] Rod: Very Jewish. Right.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Will: Well, there's a long tradition in the West, and I think there's, there's Arab traditions.
[00:26:05] I think so. It's a name that transcends a bunch of different ethnic
[00:26:09] Rod: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:09] Will: Um, so there's a list here like Miller, Luna, Sarah, uh, Giannis. And, and I think that's an example around the world of people deliberately choosing, uh, names that would mitigate cultural differences and move in, not move apart, but move together.
[00:26:25] Rod: I have to say, sorry. This, this made me think of a, a very good buddy of mine. his mom's check and they're having their first child and his mom said, I've got a few suggestions for the names. And his mom's a very
[00:26:35] Will: so, hi. So his mom, not the baby's mom.
[00:26:36] Rod: Yeah, his mom. His, his, the mother of the father of the child.
[00:26:39] Yep. This kid's growing up in Australia. And you know, the parents or the parents to be, had their names. Um, but then the mother said, why couldn't you give him a nice name like Julius Julius? Julius Julius, not Julius. And Julius is not a great name in Australia.
[00:26:53] Anyway. It's not gonna give you, it's not putting you in front of the game in primary school as a boy. It's not gonna help. And the other one was Helmut
[00:27:01] Will: helmet
[00:27:03] Rod: and she was mortified, mortified that that, that the parents pushed back and said, we're not gonna do that. And she's like, why do you know, hate our culture, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:27:12] But I just thought, this is when I first thought of my idea about my business.
[00:27:15] Will: But look, you can understand parents in that point trying to find, trying to find a name that, that says, you know, recognizing the history. But helmet might be a little bit far in current Australian naming, uh, but maybe there's somewhere in the middle.
[00:27:29] You've
[00:27:29] Rod: You gotta think about the context in which this person will like,
[00:27:32] Will: fuck capitalism.
[00:27:33] Rod: I'm on board.
[00:27:39] Will: Well, that was your little bit of science for the week.
[00:27:42] Rod: holiday edition. You're special by the pool wearing a bikini edition.
[00:27:45] Will: But because you're on holiday, you know that you still have the power to give us the rating that you need to give us. Yeah,
[00:27:53] Rod: seven stars on every app. Even things that don't do podcasts.
[00:27:56] Yeah.
[00:27:56] Will: Go out there and write it on like a recipe app
[00:27:58] Rod: an Uber and [00:28:00] Yelp. Is it Yelp still? a thing?
[00:28:01] Will: I think. so. I'm
[00:28:02] Rod: I don't know. I'm at a restaurant where Don't ye
[00:28:03] Will: listener, if you've got some topics that you want us to explore,
[00:28:07] Rod: tell Will.
[00:28:08] Will: How would you tell Will his
[00:28:09] Rod: number is 0 4 0 5 Oh. Uh, cheers. At a little bit of science Do com
[00:28:16] Will: au.
[00:28:17] Rod: au.
[00:28:17] Will: Do that. We want your stories.
[00:28:19] Rod: we wanna hear from you.
[00:28:20] Will: Lovely listener. Enjoy the pina colada.
[00:28:23] Rod: Oh, and the
[00:28:25] Will: col. Pin colada.
[00:28:26] Rod: Pini Kaia Pina Pia
[00:28:27] Will: Pina Kaia of
[00:28:28] Rod: of the Clade
[00:28:29] Will: Penai. Cate.
