# Do you feel that people who get proprietary over baby names have a point? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 14, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853 "2025-07-14T15:20:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![pgcotype](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pgcotype/32/8743_2.png) [@pgcotype](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pgcotype)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/141 "2025-07-20T14:00:23Z")
I have a nephew named Tyler, and a cousin with the same name. My sister got all pissy about my aunt “stealing” the name. They live hundreds of miles apart as adults! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/142 "2025-07-20T15:44:08Z")
Ooh, that’s a fun one! With the ongoing feminization of previously male names, there’s got to be corner cases where some infant is one of the last of the male e.g. Madisons and some other infant born within a few weeks or months is one of the first of the female e.g. Madisons. When both of that pair are in the same extended family, sparks gonna fly. ETA: Welcome back; next time don’t stay away so long. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/143 "2025-07-20T16:44:51Z")
To the best of my knowledge there was never any family drama about naming babies. Off the top of my head I can’t remember any significant name duplication in the extended family except for the expected cases of sons named after fathers. My family was pretty laid-back about a lot of things, There was also a lack of drama about inheritances. No screaming matches about who got what, family rifts because someone felt cheated. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/144 "2025-07-20T16:48:17Z")
If you plot both male and female Madisons using [NameGrapher : Namerology](https://namerology.com/baby-name-grapher/) the male ones are invisible ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/145 "2025-07-20T16:49:05Z")
Yeah, my family, too. My dad was a junior, and he was not fond of his name or being a junior. So, no way was my brother getting his name. My mom named me and my two sisters for specific reasons, and my dad named my brother with a “good Scottish name.” I _was_ named for my grandfather, but it was not part of any tradition at all. My mom wanted to name one of her kids after him, and I was her second girl. Since she got started late, she named me after him in case she had either no more kids or no sons. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/146 "2025-07-20T17:00:16Z")
Great cite / site. Thanks. Madison seems to have been an ill-chosen top-of-head example. My next thought was Tyler, but contrary to my expectations, Tyler is almost entirely male, both back then and now. But the idea still exists of common male names becoming common female names, and there must to be a transition period. I just tried Leslie and up through the 1930s it was almost universally male, then it had a multi-decade spike of female popularity with rapidly dwindling male popularity. By now the male popularity is asymptotically zero. It’s not a very popular female name right now but has a small uptick lately that may be the early stages of a resurgence. Fun site to play with. Thanks again. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/147 "2025-07-20T17:21:36Z")
Try Dana ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/148 "2025-07-20T17:28:06Z")
My grandmother was given the middle name Dorothea after an aunt. My great-grandmother wrote her sister telling how they honored here like that. The aunt wrote back saying she hated the name and that no child should ever be given it but by then the damage was done and the birth certificate had been filed. To honor her aunt’s wish that she had not been named after her, my grandmother never used her middle name. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > But the idea still exists of common male names becoming common female names Like how Bambi was a boy deer but now it’s a girls name. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/149 "2025-07-20T17:50:33Z")
The Leslie chart is really interesting. Ryan might be going the same way - there are still a lot more boy-Ryans than girl-Ryans, but the number of boys named Ryan is declining and the number of girls named Ryan is going up. At some point in the next 10 or 15 years, the lines will cross, I’ll bet, and boy-Ryans will go away. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/150 "2025-07-20T17:59:04Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > NameGrapher : Namerology Taylor is interesting, and I suspect it’ll continue to skew female more heavily in coming years on account o’ Ms. Swift. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/151 "2025-07-20T18:15:00Z")
If you liked Taylor, check out Farrah. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/152 "2025-07-20T18:20:28Z")
I used to be a substitute teacher. One class had _seven_ Roberts in it. Fortunately, most of them were in Little League and were dressed for the game. So I could say, "Number 5, you can go to the bathroom. Number 12, I saw that. Knock it off. What was your question, Number 3? And so on. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/153 "2025-07-20T20:46:35Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > NameGrapher : Namerology There no male Farrahs, but Taylor was exclusively a male name up to the 1960s, at least per the graph. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/154 "2025-07-20T20:55:53Z")
As to Farrah, my point wasn’t the male / female divide, but simply the interesting popularity trajectory over time. For quite obvious reasons. My one complaint about that site / app is that they’re using a line chart when in fact what they have are decadal totals. That should be a vertical bar chart with full-width bars. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/155 "2025-07-20T21:00:18Z")
Madison has a similar reason behind its sudden growth in popularity. See also Gage. Agree it would be nice to have yearly data, or to make the decadal data show as a bar chart. I don’t know why “Heather” has dropped off the map since 2000 - it was once a very popular name. Maybe “Heathers” was bad for it? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/156 "2025-07-20T21:04:01Z")
P.S. In cases like “Andrew” where the popularity of the name for a girl is a tiny but steady percentage of the popularity for a boy, I suspect data error (which it’s reasonable to assume can happen at a steady rate over time) rather than a weird social phenomenon that keeps girl-Andrews at such a steady relative rate over decades ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/157 "2025-07-20T21:09:16Z")
I assume they are using data from the social security database [https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/](https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/) They have the info by year, not just by decade. But the interface doesn’t always do what you want. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/158 "2025-07-20T21:27:28Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I just tried Leslie and up through the 1930s it was almost universally male Surely you can’t be serious. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/159 "2025-07-20T21:32:12Z")
Shirley, for boys, peaked around 1930, with about 130 per million. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/160 "2025-07-20T21:35:26Z")
“Vivian,” “Evelyn” and “Courtney” were once semi-popular male names, particularly in England. (Nowadays, your average Vivian is almost guaranteed to be both female and Asian-American.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853.md?page=9)