Note: This summer, our editor-in-chief, Prof. Sara L. Uckelman, supervised the research projects of two Master of Data Science students who worked on DMNES data. In this blog post, Zhichong Liu reports on their work on changing naming practices in the Reformation.
Religious Change and Naming Practices: A Data-Driven Analysis of Protestant Reformation Effects on European Personal Names in the Sixteenth Century
Zhichong Liu, Durham University
Onomastic characteristics reflect people’s psychology, while historical events are important factors influencing this behaviour and mindset. This study focuses on how the major historical event of the sixteenth-century Reformation influenced naming patterns in Europe, and through what mechanisms this influence occurred.
The dataset selected for this study contains 23,961 names, ranging from the 11th to 17th centuries, with geographical coverage encompassing 23 regions, with the top five most frequent being English, Italian, French, German, and Dutch. This blog post explores changes in the proportion of Old Testament and saint names from the 14th to 17th centuries before and after the Reformation, and to compare the extent of naming pattern changes across different regions.
Temporal Shifts in Naming Practices
Temporal variation in the proportion of Old Testament names between the 14th and 17th centuries.
The proportion of Old Testament names remained at a consistently low level before the 15th century, approximately 2.5%, and even reached its lowest point in the 15th century. This indicates that Old Testament names were not mainstream in European naming patterns during the late medieval period. After the Reformation, the proportion of Old Testament names rose sharply, reaching a peak of approximately 4.7% in the 16th century. This dramatic increase highlights the cultural impact of the Reformation’s encouragement to return to biblical sources, especially Old Testament traditions.
Temporal variation in the proportion of saints’ names between the 14th and 17th centuries.
In the 14th century, the proportion of saint names was about 30%, representing a moderate level. From 14th to 16th century, the proportion of saints’ names remained a continuous rise. Proportions escalated to 36.5% during the 15th century and culminated at 42.5% in the 16th century, which was the peak. This indicates that Saints’ names remained mainstream before and after the Reformation, continuing the medieval Catholic tradition of saint veneration. While, during the 17th century, their proportion began to decline. This suggests that although the Reformation weakened saint veneration, its influence was not instantaneous but rather emerged progressively. Although naming patterns underwent significant changes after the Reformation, they could not yet be characterized as a ‘naming revolution.’
Regional Comparison
Our findings show that Germany increased from 1.9% to 14.8%, showing the most dramatic growth. It indicates that the epicenter of the Reformation also displayed substantial shifts in naming practices. England rose from 1.4% to 5.4%, also showing significant improvement. France, Spain, Sweden and other regions also experienced growth. While, Scotland decreased from 7.7% to 4.2%, being the only region with a substantial decline. he extent of change in other regions was limited. This indicates that naming pattern is not only influenced by religious movements itself, but also closely related to regional social and political contexts.
Regional comparison of Old Testament name proportions before and after the Reformation.
In conclusion, the study found that the Reformation indeed reshaped the symbolic landscape of personal naming in Europe, though its impact was neither uniform nor consistent. The dramatic rise of Old Testament names in Germany reflected its central role in the Protestant Reformation and its embrace of Biblical literalism. England, Spain, and France also absorbed reformist ideas, but to varying degrees. Meanwhile, the decline in Scotland and the stability in Italy demonstrate the limits of the Reformation’s influence and the enduring strength of local traditions.
Statistical Tests
To verify whether these observed changes were statistically significant, the study employed a two-sample t-test to compare the proportions of names before and after the Reformation. The results showed that the increase in Old Testament names was statistically significant, while saint names, though still dominant, exhibited signs of contraction in the post-Reformation period. This quantitative finding further reinforced the trends revealed in the exploratory charts, highlighting the cultural significance of naming as a symbol of religious and ideological identity.
Mean proportions of Old Testament and saints’ names, pre- vs. post-Reformation.
The horizontal axis remains the name categories (Old Testament, Saints). The vertical axis represents p-values, using a logarithmic scale. The red dashed line indicates the significance threshold α = 0.05. For Old Testament names, the p-value approaches 10−14; for saints’ names, the p-value is approximately 10−11. Both are far below 0.05. The differences are highly significant, ruling out the possibility of random fluctuation.
Statistical significance (p-values) of differences in Old Testament and saints’ name proportions.
Effect sizes of the Reformation’s impact on Old Testament and saints’ names.
In addition, the study also calculated the effect size (Cohen’s d): d < 0.20 is considered a small effect, 0.20–0.50 a medium effect, and ≥ 0.80 a large effect. The effect sizes were d ≈ 0.124 for Old Testament names and d ≈ 0.100 for saints’ names, both of which are below 0.2 and represent negligible effects. It indicates that the magnitude of change in naming practices was not substantial in reality.
Historical Interpretation
From the perspective of long-term historical analysis, the changes in naming patterns in sixteenth-century Europe primarily manifested as a process of ideological permeation. Its effects in most regions and at the overall social level tended to be gradual and long-term. Consequently, the regional disparities in naming pattern changes in post-Reformation can be hypothesised to stem from the combined influence of specific historical events and their social contexts in each region.
Future Research
Future research could use more data analysis tools to incorporate the Reformation within a macro-historical historical framework, and explain how social, economic, and political factors during the Reformation influenced naming patterns.
For example, the future research can set the ratio of saint names to Old Testament names as the dependent variable. It can use religious factors (0=Catholic regions; 1=Protestant regions), urbanization, social structure, economic factors, education level, and other social factors as independent variables for model setup and hypothesis testing.
Using machine learning, we can employ clustering analysis to categorize regions. The fundamental objective of clustering is to put a large number of regions, groups, or names together to look at the overall distribution, in order to find patterns, communities, and ecosystems (Graphite Note, 2023, accessed 1Sep25). It can use naming distributions in each region like the percentage of old testament names and saints’ names in conjunction with contextual variables like economic factors and education level to cluster the regions. The goal is to observe if natural groups like “Protestant – Catholic” or “urban – rural” appear.
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources 