How come boys' names turn into girls' names over the years?

[raccoon]

For example:

Evelyn

Ashley

Tracy


Anyway, wonder why this happens?

[Blue-Jay]

1. Fred

[slj0101]

22. mmm...Fred...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. i think the names are gender neutral to begin with. but once girls start using these names.

the names are no longer considered fit for boys.

[unpossibles]

4. well yeah

once girls use them they have cooties. duh!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. yup and girl cooties are awful.

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. Not all of 'em

PM me some of yours and I'll analyze 'em.

:D

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. lol!

:spank:

:hi:

:loveya:

[ChickMagic]

3. Why isn't the converse true?

I've never met a boy named Trudy or Violet. Sue, yeah, sure.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. because the world is sexist. and naming conventions have always been sexist.

how are you feeling by the way? :hug:

[ChickMagic]

14. Tired, really tired.

Here's my diagnosis which I just got moments ago:
"monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance."
I don't have amyloidosis as of now, but I am
symptomatically precancerous for multiple myeloma.
Thanks for asking - you're a doll! :hug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. sorry. hope you feel less tired soon. and congratulations on being a grandaunt.

[ChickMagic]

19. Well, I also have

what my doc calls world class fibromyalgia and osteoporosis, so I think tiredness, fatigue and malaise are just the way it is.

I worry about Katy Belle (my nickname for her) because she has HPV. I hope that doesn't affect the little one.

[charlie and algernon]

42. um......

My daddy left home when I was three
And he didn't leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me "Sue."

Well, he must o' thought that is quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk,
It seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named "Sue."

[hfojvt]

87. What about Marion or Francis?

In fact, Evelyn seems to have been a girl's name first
http://www.babynamesworld.com/meaning_of_Evelyn.html

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Shirley (sic) you're joking.

Don't know the answer to your question. Gender specificity of forenames is cultural and can change over time. In some cultures there are no set male or female names.

[mzteris]

37. I went to school with a boy

whose first name was Shirley - but he didn't use it. I wonder why??????

:rofl:

[KiraBS]

8. It seems to have gone the other way...

I have seen girls being named: Sydney,Hayden,Sam,Elliot,Bailey,Shane,Finn, Finley etc..

[LostinVA]

9. Courtney is another one

[raccoon]

10. Did it switch recently? Or ages ago, like Evelyn? nt

[LostinVA]

11. Relatively recently

[asthmaticeog]

75. 1950s.

There was a novel popular at the time that had a female protagonist named Courtney, and apparently that's what started it.

Why on Earth do I know this? Damn fine question. :shrug:

[LostinVA]

12. I've also known several men named Kim

[raccoon]

24. I knew one. Kim was short for Kimball, in his case. nt

[Left Is Write]

45. I knew a Connie, short for Conrad.

[Roon]

13. When I was in Jr.High

I knew a girl named "Billy"....i always thought that was kind of weird.

[AwakeAtLast]

85. I did, too. She spelled it with an "ie" n/t

[u4ic]

16. Evelyn is pronounced different for men than women

Eve-ah-lynn, vs Evah-lynn for women.

[raccoon]

26. Eve-ah-lynn,--accent on the "ah", you mean? nt

[u4ic]

27. The emphasis is on Eve

EVE-ah-lynn.

[u4ic]

17. I've known a couple of men named Marion

they were both Polish.

[raccoon]

25. I knew one, he was South Carolinian. nt

[sammythecat]

30. Made me think of Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox"

I think he was a South Carolinian.

I guess this has nothing to do with the thread but...

[femmocrat]

32. It used to be Marion with an 'o' was masculine; Marian with an 'a'

feminine. But I've seen women named "Marion" as well.

[u4ic]

36. You're right on one account

I made a mistake - one was actually Marian, not Marion.

[Left Is Write]

39. That's true. Also, Adrian was masculine and Adrienne was feminine, but...

I've heard of women named Adrian.

[Kat45]

47. I've seen Marian with an 'a' for Eastern European men, but with an o

for men in this country. And I've seen it spelled both ways for women.

[Esra Star]

34. The "Dook's" real name was Marion Morrison. But he was gay.

[Kat45]

48. Pat Robertson's first name is Marion, though he doesn't use it.

[SeattleGirl]

60. Marion was my maternal grandfather's middle name.

His first name was.....Welton. :crazy:

[Connonym]

18. I dated a guy named Dana

Althought I think that gender specific naming is sexist I'm guilty of it -- my daughters have feminized names -- Victoria and Alexandra

[Left Is Write]

40. I knew a couple of guys named Dana too. I like it as a man's name.

[Lautremont]

73. Dana Carvey?

[WhollyHeretic]

20. Jordan has gone back and forth

My father's name is Jordan, all the Jordans I know my age are female but all the kids I know named Jordan are male.

[Radical Activist]

28. Shelby

I don't know. It doesn't seem to go the other way though.

[KamaAina]

29. Better not tell this guy that Ashley's a girls' name

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com

he is one bad-ass computer scientist, let me tell you! No, really. If you were lucky, he'd let it go with calling you a "fuckmook" rather than actually beating the crap out of you.

It's really his middle name, anyway, but you're not supposed to know that...

[femmocrat]

31. Leslie/Lesley is another one.

The first Shannon I ever met was a man.

Don't forget Chandler, Cameron, Dakota, and Jamie. I've seen both boys and girls with those names.

Madison seems like it should be a boy's name.... I don't know how it became so popular the past couple of years.

[raccoon]

65. Madison was. I had a great-great-uncle or something named Madison.

My uncle referred to him as "Uncle Maddy."

[Left Is Write]

33. Vivian, Beverley.

[cmkramer]

81. How about Shirley

Maury Povich's dad was a well-known sports columnist named Shirley Povich.

I used to know two brothers named Stacy and Tracy. They had a sister named Sydney.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. Giving boys' names to girls is one of my pet peeves

When people name their daughters "Hunter" or "Avery" or "Michael," what are they saying? That they really wanted a boy?

Aren't there enough girls' names to go around that parents have to encroach on the boys' territory?

Once my dad (a Lutheran pastor) was substituting at an unfamiliar church and was asked to baptize a baby named Jimmy Lee Smith (not the real last name). Not knowing the family, he didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl, and actually had to ask. The parents were offended that he didn't know that Jimmy Lee was a girl.

[Left Is Write]

44. I remember when Avery was not a girl's name.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Like when Murphy Brown named her son Avery

:-)

[Left Is Write]

68. I watched The Match Game as a kid....

for me, the name Avery will always call to mind Avery Schreiber.

[NorthernSpy]

78. it's obnoxious as hell

There's always been a certain amount of crossover in naming. But parents who go out of their way trying to distinguish their kid with a gender-dissonant name are twits.

[kath]

38. My pet peeve is the huge number of SURNAMES that have become girls' names

recently.
I mean, people, when the mermaid in "Splash" said that her name was Madison, it was a JOKE, because she had no name and looked around and saw a street sign on Madison Avenue. The Tom Hanks character replied "But Madison isn't a name!" The name exploded into popularity in the U.S. only after that movie.

And MacKenzie, Shaughnessy, Riley and KENNEDY as girls' names?! - Gack! I have encountered at least 3 or 4 little girls named Kennedy in the past few years. Oy. :eyes:

[Left Is Write]

43. Kennedy has morphed into "creative" spelling too...

Kennady, Kinnadie, Kenadie, and so forth.

[kath]

50. I like to call it "cre8tif spelling".

:-)

And, lord, those spellings you gave are really :puke:-worthy!

(I didn't invent "cre8tif" - got it from a long-standing thread about baby names at Salon's TableTalk.)

[xmas74]

72. A friend named her daughter Kennedy a few years ago-

before this huge trend of Kennedys popped up.

In her family it is tradition to name the first born daughter after her grandmothers. One of the grandmother's was named Beulah (may she rest in peace-lovely lady). Anyway, she didn't have a middle name. It was decided to give the baby her grandmother's maiden name instead.

So, the baby became Kennedy Elizabeth. (This was in 1991). Now she's upset because there are a ton of Kennedys running around and almost none of them have any significance-and most aren't even spelled properly.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

61. Is THAT where all that "Madison" nonsense came from?

(I've never seen Splash.)

[Nicole]

62. I pity the girl who falls in love with a boy whose surname is her first name.

Riley Smith would become Riley Riley if they marry & she takes his name.

[kath]

69. Oh, goodness - hadn't thought of that! Well, one more good reason for

a woman to keep her own name!

Kennedy Kennedy, Shaughnessy O'Shaughnessy, MacKenzie MacKenzie, Taylor Taylor, Corey Corey - gotta stop before I :puke:

[Nicole]

74. Definitely

I would keep my name if that were the case.

[Left Is Write]

71. My daughter had an elementary school teacher named Kelly Kelly.

[raccoon]

66. I don't care for that trend, either. nt

[NorthernSpy]

77. all those MacKenzies really should be NiKenzies...

The "Mac" prefix literally means "son of". The prefix for "daughter of" is Ni. So why didn't all those pretentious suburbanites name their daughters "NiKenzie" instead?

:think:

Oh, I know. That might have sounded kind of... black.



:sarcasm:

[Redstone]

41. How about Kim?

Redstone

[reyd reid reed]

46. One of my first boyfriends ever

was named Lynn. I thought that was soooo bizarre. He was cute, though.

For a fifth-grader, anyway.

[fishwax]

86. that's a common middle name for males in my family

my grandfather's middle name was Lynn (and he went by it as much as he did by his first name).

[benny05]

49. or Pat

or Leslie
Chris

[GirlinContempt]

51. Nicknames aren't the same thing.

My nickname could be Alex. My name is still a traditional, ancient female name.

[benny05]

52. But what about Leslie?

As in Leslie Howard?

[GirlinContempt]

53. That's been going on for over a hundred years

*shrug*

[benny05]

54. Still a guys name turned into a gals

Theme of your post..

[GirlinContempt]

55. Yeah

I wasn't specifically responding to the name leslie, but Pat and Chris. Leslie is one though that happened so long ago I don't even think of it as gender specific.

[benny05]

56. This raises a different point on my part

Which is androgynous names. But I didn't wish to digress too much.

[GirlinContempt]

67. Yeah

Names are strange.

[NMDemDist2]

57. Shannon

another gender neutral one

[Lady Effingbroke]

58. A couple years ago, one of my bosses was a guy named Stacy.

Besides him, I've only met one other man named Stacy.

[Left Is Write]

70. There's the actor Stacy Keach.

[rhiannon55]

79. Funny, I know two guys named Stacy

they're both 40-something, and they are friends with each other. Weird, huh?

[qnr]

63. My sister and I had the same name.

Mine was the first name, hers was the middle name, but she insisted everyone call her by that one.

[Saphire]

64. Friend named her boys....Stacy, Jan and Kim.

[stirlingsliver]

76. Glenn Close?

I don't know.

[Dora]

80. It's Women's Conspiracy to Take Over the World.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Javaman]

82. I once met a girl named Kevin...

Her dad died the day she was born.

Sad story.

[Left Is Write]

83. There was a female newscaster in Minneapolis named Kevyn Burger.

[spindrifter]

84. There is Carroll--

Oddly enough, my mom had an uncle with that name and it's the middle name of one of my in-laws.

[NC_Nurse]

88. Lack of a son to inherit the name?

In the South, there are a lot of Juniors and thirds and fourth and all that BS. If you don't have a son, I guess you gotta
stick somebody with Dad's name.