Curious: Unisex Names

I have a niece named Hunter , her sister is named Tierny. I also have a nephew (cousin to Hunter and Tierny) named Birkley, but I could see it as a girl’s name too.

My name, Carmen, is considered a unisex name. I teach with a woman whose name is Carroll. We have a girl on our team whose name is Brett and another young lady with the name Sydney. We had a boy at our school a few years back named Ariel.

I may start a “WTF” name thread, since most of my students have unique names.

Has anyone mentioned Glenn?

Sydney IS a girl’s name. Sidney is the male version.

See Sidney Poitier, and his daughter Sydney.

Likewise, Sydney, NSW was named after a woman (which is how I remember which gender gets which spelling).

And then there was Marion Berry, onetime mayor of DC, and now a congressman from Arkansas (unless it’s another Marion Berry which I doubt).

Let’s see irishgirl, we could be generous and say that a lot of people have a hard time hearing the difference between Sean, ‘John’ in Irish/Scots, and Siän, ‘Jane’ in Welsh, which leads to little girl babies being given the ‘wrong’ name … but I’m not convinced :wink:

[hijack]
I get the impression that names in the Americas are just used/adapted a lot more freely than in Europe. Potentially through the whole ‘melting pot’ thing. In Latin America I’ve met a lass called ‘Kennie’ - her Dad’s best friend was a Ken; another called Alegna, her mother’s name was Angela; a Yusuf Lopez whose catholic parents just liked the name and Sao Paolo abounds with Japanese/Portuguese combinations. [/hijack]

Marion Berry is white, was born in 1942, and represents Arkansas’s First Congressional District.

The black man who served as mayor of Washington was born in 1936, and his name is Marion Barry.