Has anyone seen a list of such names to avoid when naming a boy on any baby name web pages? Or can you add others to the list below which may indicate a trend has started.
(I don’t want to debate this issue, just get a list that would help a boy out down the road from feeling like he has a “girl” name. This has happened to a co-worker who has a boy named Kyle and two other first graders in his class last year (girls) had his name and her son wanted to know why he had a girl’s name .)
I’m not talking about the standard gender neutral names like Pat, Chris, Lee or Robin, but tradional boy names that are being used more and more for girls:
Kyle
Morgan
Ryan
Alex
Taylor
Hunter
Reese/Rhys
Shawn/Sean
Sidney/Sydney
Drew
Adrian
The Institute for Naming Children Humanely has been helpful, but their list is limited and doesn’t seem to have been updated in over a year.
btw, Mrs. H8_2_W8 and I won’t need to make a final decision until about February 27th, 2003 and only a 50-50 chance of needing to be aware of this boy/girl name issue.
Kendall sounds somewhat familiar to me also. I can add that to the list of a surname generally used for boys (Taylor, Hunter, etc.) that may have been used for a girl.
The peope who used to live in the apartment below me had named their daughter… Dante.
No shit. Dante.
And I knew the kid’s name (it was on their mailbox), but not its gender, and she was about 1 year old when I chit-chatted with them in the doorway, and mentioned what a nice boy he was. You know how young kids can sometimess be hard to tell, and knowing the name was Dante, my money was on “boy”.
“No, she’s a girl”, said the mother with an angry frown.
“A girl?”, I replied with a little too much amazement.
“Yes. Dante is a girl.”
I decided to drop the subject. Either these people did know who Dante Alighieri really was, and decided that they’d be “modern” or “controversial” or something, or they really didn’t know and were on their way to naming their nextborn Ford Fiesta just because it sounds cool.
Well, my siblings used to know a girl called Kendal.
As for some other names: (The Baby Name Countdown by Janet Schwegel is quite helpful in this regard)
[ul]
[li]Jordan[/li][li]Christopher, Christian[/li][li]Carson[/li][li]Tyler (yes, I’ve heard this used for a girl at least once)[/li][li]Madison (?)[/li][li]Sawyer[/li][li]Michael (like the actress Michael Learned)[/li][li]Cameron[/li][li]Kevin[/li][li]Logan[/li][li]Cody[/li][li]Chase[/li][li]Jesse[/li][li]Blake[/li][li]Dakota[/li][li]Spencer[/li][li]Carter[/li][li]Lindsay[/li][li]Courtney[/li][li]Kelly[/li][/ul]
There’s probably more, but I’m not going to look through the whole book for you.
You know girls named Christopher, Michael, and Spencer? That’s cruel! Kyle is an odd one too - that hasn’t even been a common boys’ name for long over here.
Less common shortenings for names, like Frankie, Micky, even Davey, seem to be showing up more among girls than boys now. Charlie and Billy/Billie seem to be pretty much equally male/female right now. And with Samantha seemingly being fashionable, I’m seeing an increase in Sams of both sexes.
Had two students, boy and girl, each named Harley.
And wasn’t Ariel pretty much a boy’s name (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) until Disney’s The Little Mermaid came along?
(Sidetrack to topic)
I had girl students who were named after cities, too:
Dallas
Dakota (okay, it’s a state or tribe, but I still count it Phoenix (the city, not the mythological bird - asked her mom, and it was the former) Savannah
Denver
Cheyanne (spelled that way, pronounced like the town)
??? Rico, Flamsterette didn’t mention Leslie. FWIW, my step-Grandad was also called Leslie, and one of his grandaughters was named after him. She despised the name, and changed it to Becky later in life.
Personally, I think the Last-names-as-firsts (Tyler, Connor, Baker) ought to be avoided just because they’ve become so damned overused. As for the boy names turned girly, I’ll second Jordan, and add Randy and Dylan, I’ve met two female Dylans just in the past year or so.
I knew a Joey and a James who were female, and there’s a Jan at my work who’s male (what were they thinking!?) so I guess you just never know. But overall, it just seems like most of the “trendy” or unusual boy names eventually end up being co-opted by the girls side. I wonder why that is?
I’ve known two male Jans too - it’s the Cornish (South-West England) version of John. So it is a traditional male name, it just doesn’t sound like one.
I just remembered, I have heard of women called Jason, Evan and Scott. It seems that no name is safe! Perhaps you should just call your son Boy and cease all confusion?
Isn’t Ariel female in the Tempest? I’ve only seen a woman playing the part. Unfortunately, the intro to the play doesn’t give any pronouns when speaking of the character (using “airy spirit” consistantly instead of he or she as a sunstitution for the name) and skimming through the play I haven’t found the gender mentioned. Have you actually met someone, male or female, named that though?
Ariel is a boy name. It’s Hebrew, meaning “lion of god.” The feminine version is Ariella.
My senior year of college, I lived with a lesbian couple. Their 13-year-old daughter was called Kyle. Which was very confusing to me, because my name is, of course, extremely similar. As an aside, they combined their last names to give her her last name. Let’s say one woman’s name was “St. Jean” and the other’s was “James”. They named her Kyle St. James. (That isn’t her name of course, but one of her moms did have a two-part name that fit nicely.)
[hijack arrr matey] In The Tempest, Ariel’s gender is never really pinpointed, and the role has traditionally been played by either gender. Last time I saw it, Ariel was played by a guy. That’s the way it usually is in my head when I read the play, too. But basically, Ariel is a spirit – s/he represents the mental and spiritual (as opposed to Caliban representing the base physical) and doesn’t really need a gender. [/hijack arrr matey]
My uncle has four daughters, all with masculine surname-type names. The poor things. My mother has it bad enough, going by Marte (the ‘e’ was an attempt to make the name look feminine online, didn’t entirely succeed).
QueenAl, it’s true I didn’t mention Leslie, but Rico included it because that’s my real name. And don’t worry about it either, Rico. You should have seen my reaction when there was a guy with the exact same name as me (first and last) in my high school! :eek: And yes, I knew Leslie was a boy’s name then, too. So no offense taken, Rico… none at all.
I don’t actually know girls named Michael, Chirstopher, and Spencer, but have seen those used in birth announcements and such.
dwyr, I sometimes get mail addressed to Mr., as well. I was going to have this name whether or not I was a girl or a boy… I swear my parents had little imagination. Besides, my aunt had that name; not sure how much esteem my mom holds her brother’s wife in, but that’s my name too. In fact, my sister has started talking recently about how confusing it might be for her children because there’ll be two Auntie Leslies.
Derleth, I was going to suggest Ashley in my list, but never got around to it. Oh well.
Robert, Scott, Douglas, and Neil were common names for girls in the 17[sup]th[/sup] century.
I’ve never known any boy Ariels, but some girl Ariels.
So no offense taken, Rico… none at all. 