Knew a guy at college named “Shannon”. Quite amusing freshman year when we went to the sorority rushes together, each with our invitations. When they balked, he insisted they let him stay, since he could prove her was the “Shannon [last name]” listed on the invite, complete with dorm address (evidently none of them picked up on the fact it was on the guys’ side of the dorm).
He got a few dates in addition to the tea and cookies, as well as some great laughs from that.
Ignore the ‘r’ between the braces. Intent is now intact.
I’ve known guys named Stcy and Tracy (but they went by Stace and Trace).
The best, though, is my mother and stepfather: Chris and Dale. Except she’s Dale and he’s Chris.
I despise the trend of reconverting names from one gender to the other, but as history shows us is ongoing…Beverly used to be exclusively male like many already mentioned.
You are lucky to be dealing with a single, try having half assed attempts at humor aimed at your children when carrying twins. I can’t tell you the number of people who tried telling me I wasn’t following the ‘twin naming rules’ by not being alliterative, cutsie, rhyming, or pallendromic in name couplets.
My advice, stick to the classics: Claire, Eleanor, Olivia are beautiful names and Nathan, Jack & Thomas are good and solid. It’s your kid.
My wife had a female student named Jhonie (pronounced Johnny). She was named after her grandfather but was supposed to have been a boy. Apparently they felt that if they gave her name a non-traditional spelling it would be more feminine ;).
Shirley, Beverly, Loren & Kim use to all be exclusively boy names.
Cassidy
Kennedy
Kendall
Keenan
Keely
& alot of Irish surnames now first names
James (King): an actress
Michael Learned ( Ma Walton)
I like Olivia alot. It was in my top five names for my daughter. Right behind: Josephine ( this is not your daughter), Elizabeth. Oliva and Petra. We named her Teagan. (Welsh for pretty or beautiful.) The winner was a dark horse 40-1 longshot. The family is still reeling over our choices.
I’m a Darcie. It’s still a boys name (with the y) in Canada, as far as I can tell, and I’ve seen some people try to make it pretentious and French (D’Arcy). Almost no one spells it my way, people are forever spelling it wrong on bills, etc.
All the Darc(i)(e)(y)s I’ve met have been girls, but I am aware of several male hockey players named Darcy.
Preach it, sistah! I hate hate hate to be called Liz. And I agree that it has gotten a bit over-popular. It used to be a pleasant surprise to meet a little girl with my name. Now I can’t get away from the little buggers. But on the plus side, an Elizabeth will never be mistaken for a boy.
H8_2_W8–I really like your name choices. I don’t think any of them will go gender-neutral any time soon. We didn’t want gender-neutral names either. FWIW, we named the Beansprout Arthur. So I guess that makes me an “educated professional upper-middle income type.” 
But in all fairness, that’s a pretty reasonable description of me and mine. Except for the income part. Oh well.
Re Jan: Jan Harold Brunvand, the urban legend guy, is male. Jan is definitely a traditional male name. I, of course, am named Jan but am female. (Most people assume that “Jan” is short for something else, like Janet or Janice. It’s not. I’m just Jan.)
We named our son Ezekiel, Zeke for short. I have no idea what economic class that’s suggestive of, but one of the baby name books we read while I was pregnant said that when people hear the name “Zeke” they think of a “dirty, smelly old hillbilly.”
Hmph.
Humprey Bogart was eternally grateful to English actor Leslie Howard for having Bogart cast with him in The Petrified Forest, Bogart’s big break. So much so that Bogart named one of his children after Leslie . . . his daughter.
It’s nice to see that people still recognize that my name was once a predominantly male name (Jordan). When I was little, and the name wasn’t that common for anyone, and those that were named Jordan were almost all boys, I’d hear my name in a store, and it always referred to me.
Now I’ll hear “Jordan, come over here,” and some 5 year old girl will go running by me. It’s taken some getting used to. I think the name works for a girl, but I kind of wish that they hadn’t hijacked it. Plus, it’s become a very popular name…
Looking at the most popular names list, last year it was almost split between boys and girls, which is odd…in the 1970s (when I was born), Jordan was the 330th most common name for new baby boys. It didn’t make the top 1000 for girls.
In the 1980s, it was 62nd for boys, and 650th for girls. Wow…
In 2001, it was 46th for boys and 49th for girls.
That’s a reversal. J(ordan)man
Let’s not forget Glenn Close (who played Norma Desmond on Broadway).