chris will never be anything but a bible name

Slate is publishing excerpts this week from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. I've always had a bit of a thing for names (a.k.a. onomastics) and so do these men. These excerpts explore the naming of children with racially indicative choices and how names migrate up and down the socioeconomic ladder. They include the kind of fascinating data found below.

The California names data tell a lot of stories in addition to the one about the segregation of white and black first names. Broadly speaking, the data tell us how parents see themselves—and, more significantly, what kinds of expectations they have for their children.

The actual source of a name is usually obvious: There's the Bible, there's the huge cluster of traditional English and Germanic and Italian and French names, there are princess names and hippie names, nostalgic names and place names. Increasingly, there are brand names (Lexus, Armani, Bacardi, Timberland) and what might be called aspirational names. The California data show eight Harvards born during the 1990s (all of them black), 15 Yales (all white), and 18 Princetons (all black). There were no Doctors but three Lawyers (all black), nine Judges (eight of them white), three Senators (all white), and two Presidents (both black).