Abstract This paper presents an account of how first name choice is influenced by socio-ethnic changes during the transitional period between two Iranian governments. Analyzing 4,800 names in four ethnically-contrastive provinces, this socio-onomastic study shows that, in Iran, names serve a social identity function. Of the six categories, namely, Persian-Traditional, Persian-Modern, Islamic-Traditional, Islamic-Modern, Combined and Western names, the latter two showed a consistent increase in number (macro-level) with the other four categories showing micro-level differences. These differences, however divergent they are initially, converge and consolidate name change patterns derived from socio-political modifications. A slow pace of change is revealed in the early stages, which demonstrates that name changing begins with fewer names being chosen from popular categories, followed by a more even distribution across all the categories and, finally, a gradual increase in the number of names from less popular categories.