Why are moms naming their daughters "boys names" now?

I’ve never really seen the name Jordan as specifically male. I’ve always seen it as a unisex name.

I completely disagree that it creates problems. I think it inspires more gender equality to be honest. It encourages people not to make assumptions of a person’s gender based solely on a name. Kind of the way a couple of years ago, a lot of people automatically assumed that mainly men are doctors.

Who is to really say what constitutes a boys name or a girls name? They are just names.

Just because a name is traditionally used for girls does not mean it has to be permanently gender-specific.

I wouldn’t say that “we never give boys girls’ names”. We recently had a contract hire on one of our projects – a man nearly as old as I am – whose name was Vicky. I kid you not. Vicky Lynn, in fact. And I have heard of men named Shirley.

This has been going in for as long as I can remember. Look at my name, Leslie, and I’m a girl. Ashley has been used by girls for a really long time, and it was originally a name given to men. Girls use surnames also; Taylor and Kelly to name two.

Robin is used for girls and boys and I think is also a surname. I don’t know which gender used it first. I know a man names Kelly and a man named Tracy. Tracy is a surname also. I also know a man named Shannon.

I is think it’s true there has been a trend in the last 49 years to more and more give traditionally make names to girls. I read one article where a mom said she wanted her daughter’s resume when she looked for a job to be perceived as though she was a man.

I know two Jordans. One a man and one a woman.

Also, if you know people from many countries you see even more crossover. I’ve met more than one male Michele, and Rene/Renee both men and women.

I could name more examples of everything I talked about above.

And what of the reverse?

Carol O’Connor
Leslie Nielsen
Jamie Foxx
Tracy Morgan
Lindsay Buckingham
Stacy Keatch

Interesting that you assume that Moms name their daughters and not that the decisions are made by both parents.

I have found that their is more of a tendency toward gender neutral and rather Waspy sounding names of late – but I don’t see it as affecting more girls than boys.

I work with a man named Kim who was born in 1950. And i grew up next to a boy named Kelley.

I do know a number of girls born in the 1990s named Morgan. But in the last fifteen years there seems to have been a trend back to more “traditional” girls names: Rachel, Ruth, Olivia, Emily, Amelia.

I know a man named Lavern.

10 Badass Men With Girls Names

Sidney Portier
Aubrey Graham aka Drake
Gale Sayers
Ashley Cole (Soccer star )
Courtney B. Vance
From This.

Really, there’s no such thing as a “boy name” or “girl name”, just like there’s no such thing as masculine or feminine colors. Parents name their children based on the names that they think are nice, which is the only thing that matters.

Nine Famous Men With Women’s Names
has a few not mentioned, like Meredith, Evelyn and Dana.

My nephew is named Mackenzie, and my sister caught shit for giving him a “girl’s name”. Nevermind that Mc/Mac is masculine, meaning “son of”.

@ibstubro A lot of the names you are calling girls’ name are traditional English male names such as Evelyn and Aubrey. Sidney has always also been traditionally a male name occasionally used for women.

Um, most of the ones I see mentioned, are names traditionally used for both genders, even if some modern people don’t know that.

Unlike…what? @janbb?

Jordan, Leslie, Robin, Ashley, Shannon, Michele, Rene, Carol, Jamie….?

I know a man named Lavern, and I know that it’s an Old World English name.
I’m also very familiar with the name Evelyn Waugh.

Johnny Cash had something to say about that
@ibstubro Jesse is a guys name and marilyn manson is not a badass

I guess the same reason women are now wearing mens glasses.

Why not? What difference does it make? As long as we’re not naming our children ridiculous names, I don’t think there should be rules around what names can be used for children of a specific sex. And if you meet a person, usually you can tell whether they are male or female. However, even then, what difference does it make? Perhaps it will help end gender inequalities if people can’t tell from a person’s name what sex they are.

Not for nothing, but “men’s names” look better on resumes than “Staci” and “Candice” and “Jessyca”.

@Seek How about LayShonDa?

@Seek depends on where you are applying

”Really, there’s no such thing as a “boy name” or “girl name”, just like there’s no such thing as masculine or feminine colors. Parents name their children based on the names that they think are nice, which is the only thing that matters.”

@DD: Totally agree!! Gender-specific toys too. Or Tee-Shirts.

My name is pronounced Ashley, which was originally a boys name. I’ve always thought of Jordan/Jordyn as a unisex name, like Sam or Alex.

I think that there are numerous names which are thought of as unisex, Jordan being one of them.

Someone else mentioned that it might affect how the person is perceived when seen on a resume. I think that’s how it should be. Someone should be judged upon their qualifications for the job at hand rather than their gender.

As long as a name isn’t so over the top ridiculous, I don’t see a problem. And even for that, some of those kids choose a nickname and that’s the end of the story except for official paperwork.

Years ago I went to a Dr’s. office run by two brothers, Herodotus and Xenophon Damianos (I kid you not). But what mattered the most to me was their medical knowledge. Period.

The staff just made things convenient with Dr. X and Dr.H.

It worked out just fine :)

John Wayne’s real first name was Marion.

English is a language without grammatical gender (except in pronouns), so for that reason names are easily interchangeable between the genders. In gendered languages, like Italian, names often have masculine and feminine counterparts: Emilio vs. Emilia, Giulia vs. Giulio, etc. No such dichotomy exists for most English names and you can’t point to the name and say “look, it’s in the feminine gender!” like you can in a language like Italian. And some names simply shift their associations (as someone mentioned, with “Lindsay”—originally a man’s name, now almost exclusively associated with women).

I always think of Carroll O’Connor. Also, what about Abbie Hoffman? Not sure if I spelled it right, but Abbie doesn’t sound like a guy’s name to me.

Someone before was telling me about a friend “Ronnie.” He said Ronnie was short for Veronica, which it is, but without the explanation, I’d have thought Ronnie was a guy.

I just read that Veronica Reagan’s widow passed away. ;-)

@Brian1946: Hahah yes, Veronica’s Nancy.

Carroll is a boys name. His name was Carroll o’Connor. It’s all in the spelling. An Irish thing.

In America Carroll for a man is quite rare. When said it is the same as Carol, so it indeed sounds exactly the same as the feminine spelling. Most Americans wouldn’t know the double LL is the masculine way to spell it. The same way I know a lot of Americans that just don’t “get” why Sean is spelled Sean. My generation and older might be aware of the Irish spellings, and parts if the country that still have a lot of Irish-Americans clustered together, but lots and lots of Americans are clueless.

Names like Francis and Frances, also, a lot of people don’t know the spelling rules for gender. Even Alexander and Alexandra I think people don’t hear, or say, the difference. Add in that we have plenty of people in the US who speak English as a second language. I’m pretty sure my husband wouldn’t be sure how to pronounce Gabriel vs Gabrielle and Dominic vs Dominique when he first reads them at a glance.

@JLeslie: Exactly what I was thinking about Carroll. It’s all in the spelling but if one hears the name verbally, they’re not looking at the spelling.

I think the Irish gave us a lot of names that went from surname to boy given name to eventually girl name.

In Ireland, most surnames were patronymic forms of given names, and usually male given names, though there are a few instances of female given names becoming eventual family names. Those that weren’t patronymics or matronymics names were clan names, and those clan names most likely derived from given names as well.

For example, the given name Carroll is derived from the surname O’Carroll, which is an Anglicisation of Ui Cearbhall, which means “Son of Cerball”.

Now, it’s conceivable that an Irish person living or working among Englishmen in the 16th century named Cerball started calling himself Carroll, though we so far don’t have evidence of that practice. We do have a lot of evidence of surnames-as-given-names becoming fashionable among the English and their subjects at that same time, however, for both male and female given names.

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