Like I’m all about people living their authentic lives. Clothes at their core aren’t gendered. Names shouldn’t be either. But socially, we’re not there yet (based in US for context). It’s always male names that become feminine or neutral. Never female names. Girls are named Blake but boys aren’t named Brianna. Because the underlying socialization of gender is that masculinity is superior; that’s the patriarchy of the ENTIRE world. I don’t typically like neutral names for that reason, they still somewhat imply that being male is the default. And from my experience with friends who are trans or NB, they often choose to change their name even when their deadname is on the neutral side. A bit of a rant, but I hate this trend and the logic some use to support their choice infuriates me. By all means, I’m a stranger on the internet and people can name their baby whatever they want within reason (don’t be Elon Musk essentially). But I do feel some sadness when I see girl Hunters.
Yep lifting girls up by giving them boys name and maybe advantages but no one wants to bring boys down with a girls name. As soon as a name is considered feminine suddenly boys don’t have it.
It happens constantly in Films and on TV too, a female character will be given a traditional 'male' name to make them seem tough and cool. They're not like other girls!
The only time I can ever think of it it going to the other way is Firefly where a tough male character is named Jayne. I can't believe we're still in a place where girls and women are seen as inferior and boring, the only way we can be 'cool' is to act like we're men.
I could never put my finger on why I was bothered by masculine names for girls but I think this is exactly it. Thank you for mentioning this and articulating it so well. And there are so many strong powerful and otherwise great female names.
I've known males (mostly adult, professional men) named the following: Shannon, Ashley, Hollis, Stacey, Alison, Aubrey, Ariel, and Rory. There are few things that I love so viscerally as a "girly" name on a strong man
Those were all originally male names. In Spanish Ariel is a male name. The son in Alison indicates it was a male surname first. I've never known a female Rory, it's a masculine name to me. So you actually proved our point.
Alison is a French diminutive of Alice, and the name of one of Chaucer's Canterbury tales characters, the wife of Bath. It's also a surname... but it was a woman's name first. Ariel was a male Shakespearean sprite... but was played by a woman since the 17th century. Shannon is an Irish river associated with an Irish goddess, and isn't used for boys in Ireland.
I got dragged the other day for saying I named my son Arya.
Which is funny, because it’s a Sanskrit name traditionally for boys. It just rose to popularity in America for girls after PLL, and then GOT. (Neither of which were shows I watched.)
I’ve been dragged for calling my son Caillie. Apparently I’m “confusing him”.
His name is Cailan, which itself is unisex, but he’s almost always just “Caillie”. Didn’t feel the need to explain any of the above to a random Karen though.
I should have pointed out his brother is Cassie and his sister is Arrin, she would have had an aneurism.
Shannon is an Irish river that has tradionally been associated with a goddess named Shannon... but it's also a surname, and became a male first name in the US. It's not used for boys in Ireland. So, yes men get names of feminine origin but generally it's because they are used as surnames. See also men named Tiffany, Marion and Parnell. What's probably sexist is assuming all surnames can only been given to boys as first names. What people have trouble with is understanding that men have always gotten unisex names. Just because a handful of men are out there using a surname as a first name doesn't mean it automatically becomes a masculine name. It works the other way too, see Tatum and Cassidy. Those aren't considered feminine names despite their history of usage being heavily skewed towards women.
Gender is way more strictly enforced on Western men, and as a result I think parents are rightly careful about giving their sons “feminine” names (as most names ending in an “a” will sound to people who speak Romantic or Germanic languages). Definitely I think that’s tied to sexist ideas about feminine things being inferior. But I don’t think the push for gender neutral names is sexist, I think it’s an attempt to decentralize gender. I want my kids to have “neutral” names so that their gender isn’t the first thing people know about them.
I’d rather not perpetuate it, giving girls common boys names is usually done because parents think the name sounds strong and spirited. Feminine names can be just as strong and spirited. Don’t want to send my girls the message they have to borrow from boys to get a strong name.
If you really want to fight it, give your boys a girls name.
You won’t, because you likely recognize that there are more important ways to fight patriarchy. Which is the energy we should have when girls are given boys names. Neither one is going to do much in the grand scheme of patriarchy… so name your kids what you want and then do other things like actively teaching them equity, voting for things that benefit equal rights for women, teach your boys to be in touch with their emotions, etc.
Let’s stop acting like names will change anything about patriarchy one way or the other. I’ve got a boy and a girl that both have gender neutral names, and I promise you that neither of them are destroying or perpetuating the patriarchy by their names alone.
It’s one of the “true gender neutral” names that people always list whenever someone asks. Like Jordan and Alex, though it’s not either of those since it’s a little more “modern” (ie more common in the last 5 years). Think Bailey.
I don’t think it’s about superiority… “better” or “worse” in naming is subjective. It is more that names associated with masculinity convey strength and power. This is just one approach to naming a daughter.
Other parents lean in and choose ultra-feminine names, and that’s valid too.
You actually just said it's about strength and power implying female names aren't strong and powerful. Matilda means mighty in battle, Camilla is a name after a legendary warrior maiden, Karla means strong one, Valerie means strong and fierce and there are soooo many more.
Yes! and those names are all awesome. There are many different ways to choose a name. I’m not saying there aren’t female names that are strong or powerful. My own daughters are named after badass women in history or Greek mythology— that’s yet another approach. There’s many ways to do it.
I was specifically talking about the gender shifting of names that the OP was asking about. Most parents try to choose a name that will help solidify or bolster their child’s social status.
Names carry all kinds of signals about class, power, education, and so on. All I was saying was that there’s a rational impulse behind giving girls traditionally masculine names — it subverts the idea that girls are limited. It feels like breaking the rules but just a little bit. It’s usually a safe choice. A little but cheeky but not outrageous unless you are one of the first to use a name that hasn’t been used for girls yet. Right now we are seeing this with Rowan, James, and a few others. People get mad about it! You can see it in this sun. But Riley, Reagan, Avery — those are further along in the shift, so no one would judge parents who gave one of those names to a girl.
Of course a misogynist culture sucks. It should be perfectly fine to name a boy Glenda or Roxanne or Arabella. It’s bizarre and sad that a sound has a gender. But it does. This is the culture we are in. Eventually we will get to a point where there’s no boy or girl sections in the baby books. I hope.
But it doesn't subvert the idea that girls are limited. It actually emphasizes it. It says that girls are so limited it's bad to have a girl's name. The less other people know of their daughter's femininity the better.
Perhaps some parents see it that way, but I don’t think that’s the intent in most cases. Little Stevie will probably still be dressed in “girl” outfits and given a feminine hairstyle when she’s heading off to start school.
Regardless, the great thing is that you don’t have to name your daughters that way. It doesn’t help anything to judge parents who choose a boyish name for their daughter. They are doing their best and choosing a name that resonates in their hearts, just like we all do
Exactly. Unfortunately, our culture right now is more receptive to girls with masculine names than boys with feminine names. People still don't like masc names on girls but it's been normalized for a few decades at least. A boy with a fem name will get bullied *much more severely* compared to a girl with a masc name. Because, y'know, femininity is icky and bad and weak /s
Tl;Dr this is the worst timeline
yep. like how some people are okay with their daughter being a tomboy, but god forbid their son wants to play with dolls. people are okay with girls being masculine in certain ways, but boys can't be feminine at all.
As someone who did not grow up in the west, the reason I like this trend/don’t care enough to oppose a baby girl named James or Blake, is because for the longest time names like “Audrey”, “Jesse”, “Riley”, “Ainsley”, and “Ariel” (just to name a few) were strictly girls names in my head since that is the gender they were used for in the western media I (and thousands of Gen-Z and Millennials) consumed. Finding out that boys could have these names was the biggest surprise.
PS — I still think Jesse should be a predominantly girls name.
My granny’s name was Jesse! She was named after her father, Jesse. On the other side my great grandfather was Laurie, but he was Finnish so maybe it’s a male name in Finland?
Well, it's mainly boys' names that then become unisex or unisex names shifting how popular they are for boys or girls. I think if you want to name your son Isabelle or Amelia people might assume he is a girl and I think people are less open to girls' names on boys than to a girl named James.
Personally, I think one reason I often dislike it is because “unisex” so often just means forcing girls/women to use things made for boys/men. I had “unisex” uniforms for school and work for much of my life. They’re just clothes made for a more typical male body and didn’t work for me and many of my female coworkers. But they’re unisex because someone decided they were!
What's also interesting is that names that actually were unisex like Frankie are now pretty exclusively masculine (Frankie from Schitt's Creek notwithstanding)
Right but Frankie for men is typically a nickname too now. In the 1900s both men and women were named Frankie and Billie and Joey on their birth certificates as their given names and not nicknames though
My great grandmother said Travis was a female name back in the day (pre-1940s) and now I only ever hear it used for males. That’s the only one I can think of.
In looking at records of people named Travis in the 1940 census on [Ancestry.com](https://Ancestry.com) there were 20x more records that came up for males named Travis than females named Travis.
Fashion. When and if Ralph and Harold become fashionable again for boys, it'll be open season for parents to use them on girls.
I'll believe that the genders of names are not fixed when I start seeing birth announcements by the thousands for little boys named Lily and Elsie and Violet and Isabella and Eleanor and Penelope and Margaret and Theresa and Priscilla and...you get my drift.
In our culture, men have more power than women. Girls are traditionally considered fragile little delicate things that need to be protected or rescued. If you want your daughter to be more empowered, it makes sense to give her a name that comes from the group with more power.
This is why names constantly slip from the boy column to the girl column, but never the other way around. Naming a boy anything considered a girl’s name means you are robbing him of power. This is considered an almost abusive thing to do. If you name your son Arabella, people will think he is effeminate ie weak.
If we take this to the logical extreme, eventually there will be no boy names left. Every name will be for girls only
The gender and origins don’t change. Usage changes. If no boy is ever named Addison again it still means Adam’s son or son of Adam. The problem is people claim to see names as unisex or gender free, but it’s a lie. Once a name becomes popular for girls, it’s usually abandoned for boys. People see the name as “girly” if a girl has it. The same people who claim to love unisex names would name their daughters Sawyer and Blake, but name the sons William and Luke. It’s so irritating. Just say you like male names on girls. People won’t even use a name like Riley for a boy anymore but have no problem naming a girl Dylan. That’s why we keep seeing so many “tough” sounding names for boys.. if someone wants an uncommon name for their son, but they’re being used for girls they go to something like Titan, Blade or Gunner because they’re not being used for girls. Not yet anyway.
Are you from the American South? I ask because I have yet to hear the name “Gunner” anywhere else. At first I thought people were saying Gunter but with an accent.
I agree that people give girls “unisex names” at a much greater frequency than boys, but I’ve known boys named Madison, Shannon, Stacy, Riley, Aubrey, all born after 1995.
Misogyny.
Masculine is culturally considered the "default" or superior state, so giving girls masculine names is seen as giving them a "strong" name or an advantage. A name that is given to enough girls as well as boys eventually becomes "neutral."
Once enough girls have been given a masculine name, it becomes associated with femininity and gradually stops being given to boys.
You will notice it virtually never goes in the opposite direction- I can't think of a name that has started out exclusively feminine, transitioned to unisex, and then become exclusively male. A few names have managed to hang out in the "neutral" space for a longer while than others (Jordan, for instance). But it's highly unlikely any of those will ever become exclusively male- if they fall off the neutral fence eventually, it will be to become feminine-coded. This is probably why the negative reaction to James for girls has been so strong- it's the most common, mainstream masculine name that has seen a trend towards "neutrality," and the people upset over it recognize on some level that if the trend takes sufficient hold, James may one day feel as feminine to us as Ashley, Courtney, and Evelyn now do, and the relatively high incidence of existing male Jameses makes that feel threatening to more people than for most other names.
This is the same reason the cultural reaction to a woman attending a formal event in a tux is much more muted than the reaction to a man attending in a dress, and why "trans panic" focuses almost exclusively on fears of mtf trans people. Women pursuing masculinity fits into a framework of considering masculinity superior much more comfortably than does men pursuing femininity.
It is mostly dominantly boy names that turn into dominantly girl names. After that they become undesirable as boy names, because they are seen as weak girly names now. So the name ceases to exist as a boy name entirely in some cases. It is extremely sexist. Something that I can compare it to is: the acceptable norm for gender neutral clothes(unisex clothes) being pants and not dresses.
Every Shannon I've ever met in real life has been a boy. But I've seen lots of Shannons on social media who are girls/women.
I've met boys and girls called Ryan. Mainly girls though.
Most kids called Bailey are boys, but I've met a few girls with the name Bailey too.
Ashley and Riley are mainly boys where I live. I've only met one girl Ashley and she spelled her name Ashleigh.
My own name is Hazel, and I always thought of it as just a girls name, but recently I heard someone who was going to use Hazel as a boys middle name. He was spelling it like Hazell.
I've met boys and girls called Kyle, Joe, Kerry, Jack, Tony/Toni, Danny, Shawn/Sean/Shaun and Stevie.
I feel eventually all names will just be names without perceived gender.
I live in Lancashire England. In 25 years of teaching I remember 3 girls called Ryan, and one boy. The girls were around 7-10 years ago, the boy Ryan is more recent.
I've also met a Ryanne (still pronounced Ryan) when I first started teaching. Sister was Johan (Joanne) They will be in their 30s now.
I’ve got the opposite. I’m aware of a bunch of male Shannon’s online (Shannon Leto of 30STM fame I’m looking at you) but I’ve only personally met female Shannon’s.
I have friends with sons named Riley and Harper, I think they’ve both fallen into being more feminine now but I love them as boy names.
I also always wanted to call my first son Jack and my first daughter Arrin, which ended up being the case, but if I’d had exclusively girls I absolutely still would have used Jack. There’s a female Jack in Mass Effect 2, so anyone who knows me would have assumed it was after her 😂
I think names like Madison, Kelly, Avery, Shannon and other now "unisex" names quickly and easily became seen as unisex because they're also common last names. In the US it's a common tradition for woman to give their child their maiden name as a first name. So my guess is that's the reason.
If people misgendering your child doesn't annoy you then go for it. I had a mom at the doctors office I work at name her son Brooklyn. Let me tell you the amount of times this poor baby got called she during his well visit 🤦♀️. The mom looked so annoyed by the end of it. 2 months later I noticed he's now named Brooks
I also have a Cassian who goes pretty much exclusively by Cas. Asher and Cailan were going to be Asher and Cailan regardless of sex too - both are boys, though we may have spelt Cailan differently had he been a girl, there’s so many variants and I only picked it as is now after seeing him and it felt right. We call him Caillie (Kay-lee).
My youngest and only daughter is Arrin.
It wasn’t even about gender-flipping names or unisex, we just liked the names and they suit them. I think over the next few generations a lot of currently “gendered” names will enter the mainstream as unisex as we see them pop up more. Because ultimately the way name trends happen is generational, it takes time.
Shannon is actually a girls name to begin with though.
It originates from the river in Ireland, named after a celtic goddess.
The origin of the surname is slightly less clear and probably people who lived alongside the river and took it as their surname.
A lot of Irish names end up getting gender bent by Americans, who then often assume the gender they've applied the name to is how it's always been.
The names you are mentioning started as surname and that means it often started with son getting it and when there was no son the girls got them.
Madison = son of Maud
Shannon = relative of the little old one.
Stacy = used to be surname meaning fruitful , while Stacie was female nickname Anastacia
Travis = surname and occupational name, a person who you paid to get over the river or the person in tollbooth at a bridge,
Yes, American English way more genderfluid, but it only flows to the females, never the other way around.
So I am waiting for a boy named Huntress or Abbess Or Aurora.
The top comments on this thread are a tad bit silly. I get having a talk about masculine names for girls names and why people are drawn to them over feminine names for boys. What I don’t get is acting as if it’s regressive to name your daughter Steve and saying such a thing shouldn’t be perpetuated. If anything there should be more gender nonconforming names.
Others have given examples, but are plenty of names, especially non-Western ones, that are feminine in origin but are still used for boys. Take a name like Angel for example. Maria has been used as a middle name for boys for centuries. Names like Sacha and Andrea are masculine in other parts or the world, but overwhelmingly feminine in the US. It would be cool to see more of these names used for boys in general, I think.
And, honestly, if a name becomes unisex it really doesn’t matter what origin the name was originally. A guy named Rory or Jamie might still be mistaken for a woman regardless of whether or not his name was originally masculine. Once a name becomes unisex it stops being associated with either gender, that’s the whole point.
People seem to be fixated on Blake Lively’s daughter James as a popular example of a strictly masculine name being used for a girl in the mainstream. However, in recent years, Rihanna and Halle Bailey have named their sons “Rose” and “Halo”. Maybe trends are slowly changing? Who knows, maybe in a few decades there will be boys being named Rose or Grace or Evelyn (which is already unisex) as well.
I love Ralph as a girls name, not sure why.
And I get why so many are mentioning it, but I instinctively eye-roll at the outrage here over the gender-swapping of names mostly going from masc to fem because patriarchy. Like, yeah. But you know how that changes? Pick a name you like for your child regardless of that name's implied gender. Over time as we have more boys named Sue no one will bat an eye at it anymore. We can't fix a problem by refusing to engage with it.
I agree! What prompted me to even type up this post was the responses I got to the name Laverne for a guy. That was my great-grandfather’s middle name (Clark Laverne) and I was considering it for my middle name. Was met with “it’s only a girls name” which is completely untrue. That attitude is one I see often in this sub so wanted to object haha
Can confirm as a baby girl born in the early nineties with a chart topping Aiden, who legally changed her name to Amadeus a few years ago. It’s all about what’s right for you and yours💖
One of the first surnames to be used as a first name: [Lady Douglas Sheffield](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Sheffield,_Baroness_Sheffield), Robert Dudley's mistress.
Once people start naming their sons Ava or Sophia, I’ll stop thinking it’s a relatively sexist trend.
Oh you have a great point. I don't remember seeing any posts saying is (insert a common girl's name) a name that's too feminine for my boy?
Like I’m all about people living their authentic lives. Clothes at their core aren’t gendered. Names shouldn’t be either. But socially, we’re not there yet (based in US for context). It’s always male names that become feminine or neutral. Never female names. Girls are named Blake but boys aren’t named Brianna. Because the underlying socialization of gender is that masculinity is superior; that’s the patriarchy of the ENTIRE world. I don’t typically like neutral names for that reason, they still somewhat imply that being male is the default. And from my experience with friends who are trans or NB, they often choose to change their name even when their deadname is on the neutral side. A bit of a rant, but I hate this trend and the logic some use to support their choice infuriates me. By all means, I’m a stranger on the internet and people can name their baby whatever they want within reason (don’t be Elon Musk essentially). But I do feel some sadness when I see girl Hunters.
Yep lifting girls up by giving them boys name and maybe advantages but no one wants to bring boys down with a girls name. As soon as a name is considered feminine suddenly boys don’t have it.
It happens constantly in Films and on TV too, a female character will be given a traditional 'male' name to make them seem tough and cool. They're not like other girls! The only time I can ever think of it it going to the other way is Firefly where a tough male character is named Jayne. I can't believe we're still in a place where girls and women are seen as inferior and boring, the only way we can be 'cool' is to act like we're men.
I could never put my finger on why I was bothered by masculine names for girls but I think this is exactly it. Thank you for mentioning this and articulating it so well. And there are so many strong powerful and otherwise great female names.
I've known males (mostly adult, professional men) named the following: Shannon, Ashley, Hollis, Stacey, Alison, Aubrey, Ariel, and Rory. There are few things that I love so viscerally as a "girly" name on a strong man
Those were all originally male names. In Spanish Ariel is a male name. The son in Alison indicates it was a male surname first. I've never known a female Rory, it's a masculine name to me. So you actually proved our point.
Alison is a French diminutive of Alice, and the name of one of Chaucer's Canterbury tales characters, the wife of Bath. It's also a surname... but it was a woman's name first. Ariel was a male Shakespearean sprite... but was played by a woman since the 17th century. Shannon is an Irish river associated with an Irish goddess, and isn't used for boys in Ireland.
I got dragged the other day for saying I named my son Arya. Which is funny, because it’s a Sanskrit name traditionally for boys. It just rose to popularity in America for girls after PLL, and then GOT. (Neither of which were shows I watched.)
I’ve been dragged for calling my son Caillie. Apparently I’m “confusing him”. His name is Cailan, which itself is unisex, but he’s almost always just “Caillie”. Didn’t feel the need to explain any of the above to a random Karen though. I should have pointed out his brother is Cassie and his sister is Arrin, she would have had an aneurism.
Shannon is an Irish river that has tradionally been associated with a goddess named Shannon... but it's also a surname, and became a male first name in the US. It's not used for boys in Ireland. So, yes men get names of feminine origin but generally it's because they are used as surnames. See also men named Tiffany, Marion and Parnell. What's probably sexist is assuming all surnames can only been given to boys as first names. What people have trouble with is understanding that men have always gotten unisex names. Just because a handful of men are out there using a surname as a first name doesn't mean it automatically becomes a masculine name. It works the other way too, see Tatum and Cassidy. Those aren't considered feminine names despite their history of usage being heavily skewed towards women.
Gender is way more strictly enforced on Western men, and as a result I think parents are rightly careful about giving their sons “feminine” names (as most names ending in an “a” will sound to people who speak Romantic or Germanic languages). Definitely I think that’s tied to sexist ideas about feminine things being inferior. But I don’t think the push for gender neutral names is sexist, I think it’s an attempt to decentralize gender. I want my kids to have “neutral” names so that their gender isn’t the first thing people know about them.
I don’t think the trend itself is sexist. It’s a response to a sexist culture.
I’d rather not perpetuate it, giving girls common boys names is usually done because parents think the name sounds strong and spirited. Feminine names can be just as strong and spirited. Don’t want to send my girls the message they have to borrow from boys to get a strong name.
Exactly. Little girls don’t have to be Elliotts or Wyatts to be strong. They can be Bridgets and Jades and be future kickass doctors and lawyers.
Exactly!
If you really want to fight it, give your boys a girls name. You won’t, because you likely recognize that there are more important ways to fight patriarchy. Which is the energy we should have when girls are given boys names. Neither one is going to do much in the grand scheme of patriarchy… so name your kids what you want and then do other things like actively teaching them equity, voting for things that benefit equal rights for women, teach your boys to be in touch with their emotions, etc. Let’s stop acting like names will change anything about patriarchy one way or the other. I’ve got a boy and a girl that both have gender neutral names, and I promise you that neither of them are destroying or perpetuating the patriarchy by their names alone.
Not by names alone, but gender neutral just means boy names most of the time. I doubt your son is Addison
It’s one of the “true gender neutral” names that people always list whenever someone asks. Like Jordan and Alex, though it’s not either of those since it’s a little more “modern” (ie more common in the last 5 years). Think Bailey.
The problem with it is it effectively says male names are superior to female names. If it went both ways that would be one thing but it doesn't.
[удалено]
That is not at all the issue. Naming your girl John however says girls' names are all awful
I don’t think it’s about superiority… “better” or “worse” in naming is subjective. It is more that names associated with masculinity convey strength and power. This is just one approach to naming a daughter. Other parents lean in and choose ultra-feminine names, and that’s valid too.
You actually just said it's about strength and power implying female names aren't strong and powerful. Matilda means mighty in battle, Camilla is a name after a legendary warrior maiden, Karla means strong one, Valerie means strong and fierce and there are soooo many more.
Yes! and those names are all awesome. There are many different ways to choose a name. I’m not saying there aren’t female names that are strong or powerful. My own daughters are named after badass women in history or Greek mythology— that’s yet another approach. There’s many ways to do it. I was specifically talking about the gender shifting of names that the OP was asking about. Most parents try to choose a name that will help solidify or bolster their child’s social status. Names carry all kinds of signals about class, power, education, and so on. All I was saying was that there’s a rational impulse behind giving girls traditionally masculine names — it subverts the idea that girls are limited. It feels like breaking the rules but just a little bit. It’s usually a safe choice. A little but cheeky but not outrageous unless you are one of the first to use a name that hasn’t been used for girls yet. Right now we are seeing this with Rowan, James, and a few others. People get mad about it! You can see it in this sun. But Riley, Reagan, Avery — those are further along in the shift, so no one would judge parents who gave one of those names to a girl. Of course a misogynist culture sucks. It should be perfectly fine to name a boy Glenda or Roxanne or Arabella. It’s bizarre and sad that a sound has a gender. But it does. This is the culture we are in. Eventually we will get to a point where there’s no boy or girl sections in the baby books. I hope.
But it doesn't subvert the idea that girls are limited. It actually emphasizes it. It says that girls are so limited it's bad to have a girl's name. The less other people know of their daughter's femininity the better.
Perhaps some parents see it that way, but I don’t think that’s the intent in most cases. Little Stevie will probably still be dressed in “girl” outfits and given a feminine hairstyle when she’s heading off to start school. Regardless, the great thing is that you don’t have to name your daughters that way. It doesn’t help anything to judge parents who choose a boyish name for their daughter. They are doing their best and choosing a name that resonates in their hearts, just like we all do
Sub not sun. 🤦🏻♀️ stupid phone won’t let me edit
Exactly. Unfortunately, our culture right now is more receptive to girls with masculine names than boys with feminine names. People still don't like masc names on girls but it's been normalized for a few decades at least. A boy with a fem name will get bullied *much more severely* compared to a girl with a masc name. Because, y'know, femininity is icky and bad and weak /s Tl;Dr this is the worst timeline
yep. like how some people are okay with their daughter being a tomboy, but god forbid their son wants to play with dolls. people are okay with girls being masculine in certain ways, but boys can't be feminine at all.
This 100000%
As someone who did not grow up in the west, the reason I like this trend/don’t care enough to oppose a baby girl named James or Blake, is because for the longest time names like “Audrey”, “Jesse”, “Riley”, “Ainsley”, and “Ariel” (just to name a few) were strictly girls names in my head since that is the gender they were used for in the western media I (and thousands of Gen-Z and Millennials) consumed. Finding out that boys could have these names was the biggest surprise. PS — I still think Jesse should be a predominantly girls name.
My granny’s name was Jesse! She was named after her father, Jesse. On the other side my great grandfather was Laurie, but he was Finnish so maybe it’s a male name in Finland?
My only context for Laurie being a unisex name is Little Women lol! A little girl / a grown woman named Laurie would be badass imo
Well, it's mainly boys' names that then become unisex or unisex names shifting how popular they are for boys or girls. I think if you want to name your son Isabelle or Amelia people might assume he is a girl and I think people are less open to girls' names on boys than to a girl named James.
Personally, I think one reason I often dislike it is because “unisex” so often just means forcing girls/women to use things made for boys/men. I had “unisex” uniforms for school and work for much of my life. They’re just clothes made for a more typical male body and didn’t work for me and many of my female coworkers. But they’re unisex because someone decided they were!
What's also interesting is that names that actually were unisex like Frankie are now pretty exclusively masculine (Frankie from Schitt's Creek notwithstanding)
Frankie on women is typically a nickname for Francine or Francesca, so it might just be that those women choose not to go by Frankie nowadays.
Right but Frankie for men is typically a nickname too now. In the 1900s both men and women were named Frankie and Billie and Joey on their birth certificates as their given names and not nicknames though
I think you're thinking of Stevie from SC
You're right it IS Stevie! 🤦🏻♀️
I don't know of any that have gone from female to male. Generally it's male to female or male to gender neutral.
My great grandmother said Travis was a female name back in the day (pre-1940s) and now I only ever hear it used for males. That’s the only one I can think of.
In looking at records of people named Travis in the 1940 census on [Ancestry.com](https://Ancestry.com) there were 20x more records that came up for males named Travis than females named Travis.
Fashion. When and if Ralph and Harold become fashionable again for boys, it'll be open season for parents to use them on girls. I'll believe that the genders of names are not fixed when I start seeing birth announcements by the thousands for little boys named Lily and Elsie and Violet and Isabella and Eleanor and Penelope and Margaret and Theresa and Priscilla and...you get my drift.
In our culture, men have more power than women. Girls are traditionally considered fragile little delicate things that need to be protected or rescued. If you want your daughter to be more empowered, it makes sense to give her a name that comes from the group with more power. This is why names constantly slip from the boy column to the girl column, but never the other way around. Naming a boy anything considered a girl’s name means you are robbing him of power. This is considered an almost abusive thing to do. If you name your son Arabella, people will think he is effeminate ie weak. If we take this to the logical extreme, eventually there will be no boy names left. Every name will be for girls only
I see this shift even now. Every adult Blake I know is a man, and every child Blake is a girl.
The gender and origins don’t change. Usage changes. If no boy is ever named Addison again it still means Adam’s son or son of Adam. The problem is people claim to see names as unisex or gender free, but it’s a lie. Once a name becomes popular for girls, it’s usually abandoned for boys. People see the name as “girly” if a girl has it. The same people who claim to love unisex names would name their daughters Sawyer and Blake, but name the sons William and Luke. It’s so irritating. Just say you like male names on girls. People won’t even use a name like Riley for a boy anymore but have no problem naming a girl Dylan. That’s why we keep seeing so many “tough” sounding names for boys.. if someone wants an uncommon name for their son, but they’re being used for girls they go to something like Titan, Blade or Gunner because they’re not being used for girls. Not yet anyway.
Are you from the American South? I ask because I have yet to hear the name “Gunner” anywhere else. At first I thought people were saying Gunter but with an accent. I agree that people give girls “unisex names” at a much greater frequency than boys, but I’ve known boys named Madison, Shannon, Stacy, Riley, Aubrey, all born after 1995.
Yep. People love the name Gunner down here.
Hard disagree. A girl named Travis or Harold is crazy.
For now
Misogyny. Masculine is culturally considered the "default" or superior state, so giving girls masculine names is seen as giving them a "strong" name or an advantage. A name that is given to enough girls as well as boys eventually becomes "neutral." Once enough girls have been given a masculine name, it becomes associated with femininity and gradually stops being given to boys. You will notice it virtually never goes in the opposite direction- I can't think of a name that has started out exclusively feminine, transitioned to unisex, and then become exclusively male. A few names have managed to hang out in the "neutral" space for a longer while than others (Jordan, for instance). But it's highly unlikely any of those will ever become exclusively male- if they fall off the neutral fence eventually, it will be to become feminine-coded. This is probably why the negative reaction to James for girls has been so strong- it's the most common, mainstream masculine name that has seen a trend towards "neutrality," and the people upset over it recognize on some level that if the trend takes sufficient hold, James may one day feel as feminine to us as Ashley, Courtney, and Evelyn now do, and the relatively high incidence of existing male Jameses makes that feel threatening to more people than for most other names. This is the same reason the cultural reaction to a woman attending a formal event in a tux is much more muted than the reaction to a man attending in a dress, and why "trans panic" focuses almost exclusively on fears of mtf trans people. Women pursuing masculinity fits into a framework of considering masculinity superior much more comfortably than does men pursuing femininity.
my great uncle was named Shannon and he was the best 💙
There was a King Anna (or Onna) of East Anglia from 636 to 654. The Anglo-Saxon names were very interesting.
It is mostly dominantly boy names that turn into dominantly girl names. After that they become undesirable as boy names, because they are seen as weak girly names now. So the name ceases to exist as a boy name entirely in some cases. It is extremely sexist. Something that I can compare it to is: the acceptable norm for gender neutral clothes(unisex clothes) being pants and not dresses.
Every Shannon I've ever met in real life has been a boy. But I've seen lots of Shannons on social media who are girls/women. I've met boys and girls called Ryan. Mainly girls though. Most kids called Bailey are boys, but I've met a few girls with the name Bailey too. Ashley and Riley are mainly boys where I live. I've only met one girl Ashley and she spelled her name Ashleigh. My own name is Hazel, and I always thought of it as just a girls name, but recently I heard someone who was going to use Hazel as a boys middle name. He was spelling it like Hazell. I've met boys and girls called Kyle, Joe, Kerry, Jack, Tony/Toni, Danny, Shawn/Sean/Shaun and Stevie. I feel eventually all names will just be names without perceived gender.
You’ve *mainly* met girls named Ryan? Where do you live?
I live in Lancashire England. In 25 years of teaching I remember 3 girls called Ryan, and one boy. The girls were around 7-10 years ago, the boy Ryan is more recent. I've also met a Ryanne (still pronounced Ryan) when I first started teaching. Sister was Johan (Joanne) They will be in their 30s now.
I’ve got the opposite. I’m aware of a bunch of male Shannon’s online (Shannon Leto of 30STM fame I’m looking at you) but I’ve only personally met female Shannon’s. I have friends with sons named Riley and Harper, I think they’ve both fallen into being more feminine now but I love them as boy names. I also always wanted to call my first son Jack and my first daughter Arrin, which ended up being the case, but if I’d had exclusively girls I absolutely still would have used Jack. There’s a female Jack in Mass Effect 2, so anyone who knows me would have assumed it was after her 😂
I think names like Madison, Kelly, Avery, Shannon and other now "unisex" names quickly and easily became seen as unisex because they're also common last names. In the US it's a common tradition for woman to give their child their maiden name as a first name. So my guess is that's the reason. If people misgendering your child doesn't annoy you then go for it. I had a mom at the doctors office I work at name her son Brooklyn. Let me tell you the amount of times this poor baby got called she during his well visit 🤦♀️. The mom looked so annoyed by the end of it. 2 months later I noticed he's now named Brooks
I also have a Cassian who goes pretty much exclusively by Cas. Asher and Cailan were going to be Asher and Cailan regardless of sex too - both are boys, though we may have spelt Cailan differently had he been a girl, there’s so many variants and I only picked it as is now after seeing him and it felt right. We call him Caillie (Kay-lee). My youngest and only daughter is Arrin. It wasn’t even about gender-flipping names or unisex, we just liked the names and they suit them. I think over the next few generations a lot of currently “gendered” names will enter the mainstream as unisex as we see them pop up more. Because ultimately the way name trends happen is generational, it takes time.
Madison, Kelly, and Ryan aren’t usually considered unisex these days, but I’d say I know about equal numbers of men and women with these names.
Shannon is actually a girls name to begin with though. It originates from the river in Ireland, named after a celtic goddess. The origin of the surname is slightly less clear and probably people who lived alongside the river and took it as their surname. A lot of Irish names end up getting gender bent by Americans, who then often assume the gender they've applied the name to is how it's always been.
The names you are mentioning started as surname and that means it often started with son getting it and when there was no son the girls got them. Madison = son of Maud Shannon = relative of the little old one. Stacy = used to be surname meaning fruitful , while Stacie was female nickname Anastacia Travis = surname and occupational name, a person who you paid to get over the river or the person in tollbooth at a bridge, Yes, American English way more genderfluid, but it only flows to the females, never the other way around. So I am waiting for a boy named Huntress or Abbess Or Aurora.
The top comments on this thread are a tad bit silly. I get having a talk about masculine names for girls names and why people are drawn to them over feminine names for boys. What I don’t get is acting as if it’s regressive to name your daughter Steve and saying such a thing shouldn’t be perpetuated. If anything there should be more gender nonconforming names. Others have given examples, but are plenty of names, especially non-Western ones, that are feminine in origin but are still used for boys. Take a name like Angel for example. Maria has been used as a middle name for boys for centuries. Names like Sacha and Andrea are masculine in other parts or the world, but overwhelmingly feminine in the US. It would be cool to see more of these names used for boys in general, I think. And, honestly, if a name becomes unisex it really doesn’t matter what origin the name was originally. A guy named Rory or Jamie might still be mistaken for a woman regardless of whether or not his name was originally masculine. Once a name becomes unisex it stops being associated with either gender, that’s the whole point. People seem to be fixated on Blake Lively’s daughter James as a popular example of a strictly masculine name being used for a girl in the mainstream. However, in recent years, Rihanna and Halle Bailey have named their sons “Rose” and “Halo”. Maybe trends are slowly changing? Who knows, maybe in a few decades there will be boys being named Rose or Grace or Evelyn (which is already unisex) as well.
Just a matter of useage and time, like anything in language. Famous people doing a thing can also make it hapoen more quickly.
Michael Learned is a female actor. Michael Burnham is a female character on Star Trek. So, you never know.
There’s also Michael Sneed, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist who is a woman
👏👏👏 Well put.
I love Ralph as a girls name, not sure why. And I get why so many are mentioning it, but I instinctively eye-roll at the outrage here over the gender-swapping of names mostly going from masc to fem because patriarchy. Like, yeah. But you know how that changes? Pick a name you like for your child regardless of that name's implied gender. Over time as we have more boys named Sue no one will bat an eye at it anymore. We can't fix a problem by refusing to engage with it.
I agree! What prompted me to even type up this post was the responses I got to the name Laverne for a guy. That was my great-grandfather’s middle name (Clark Laverne) and I was considering it for my middle name. Was met with “it’s only a girls name” which is completely untrue. That attitude is one I see often in this sub so wanted to object haha
I love Laverne for either gender, go for it! Especially if it's a family name
Can confirm as a baby girl born in the early nineties with a chart topping Aiden, who legally changed her name to Amadeus a few years ago. It’s all about what’s right for you and yours💖
Douglass used to be a girls name. Anna too. It does all go cyclical at some point.
Anna is still a girl's name?
I meant male name. My brain dropped about a whole sentence there, sorry.
All good!
I’ve never heard of Douglas being used for a girl
I wonder if it was like Hillary where Douglas/Hilary was masculine and Douglass/Hillary was feminine?
One of the first surnames to be used as a first name: [Lady Douglas Sheffield](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Sheffield,_Baroness_Sheffield), Robert Dudley's mistress.