# 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:** 9
**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, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/161 "2025-07-20T21:37:14Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > Vivian is almost guaranteed to be both female and Asian-American. And she probably plays the violin, while her sister, Esther, plays the piano. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/162 "2025-07-20T21:43:17Z")
The only male Vivian I’ve known of is the character on “The Young Ones.” I’ve been seeing a fair number of kids named after presidents, with Hayes and Monroe being the most popular. Hayes is being used for both boys and girls. There are two sisters at the school where I worked named Hayes and Monroe. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/163 "2025-07-20T21:47:57Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > The only male Vivian I’ve known of is the character on “The Young Ones.” Other than that character, the only one I’ve really heard of is rock guitarist [Vivian Campbell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Campbell), who worked with Dio and Def Leppard, among other bands. ---
**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, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/164 "2025-07-20T21:50:22Z")
There’s also Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, though he changed his name from Victor. ---
**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, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/165 "2025-07-20T22:08:04Z")
> [@ricepad](#): > > Shirley, for boys, peaked around 1930, with about 130 per million. That’s interesting. There is a 1956 episode of _The Honeymooners_ in which Ralph gets into an altercation with a small milquetoast guy who threatens to bring his friend Harvey into the dispute, saying “My friend Harvey is even bigger than me.” Ralph retorts, “I have a friend Shirley who’s bigger than you.” Clearly Shirley was intended to be interpreted as a woman’s name. It seems odd to me that “Shirley” would have been picked by the writers as a stereotypical woman’s name only 26 years after it peaked as a boy’s name. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/166 "2025-07-20T23:29:36Z")
The only male Shirley I know of is the late sportswriter Shirley Povich. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/167 "2025-07-21T00:29:50Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > If you plot both male and female Madisons using [NameGrapher : Namerology](https://namerology.com/baby-name-grapher/) the male ones are invisible Well, not quite. I can’t seem to zoom in on the time window, but the mouseover text says that in the 1970s “Madison” as a girl’s name was not in the top 2000, whereas it was ranked #1880 for boys (down from a historical high rank of #373 a century previously, when there were about 100 boy “Madisons” per million births). In the 1980s “Madison” was ranked #548 for girls and #1180 for boys. In the 1990s, #29 for girls and #727 for boys; in the 2000s, #2 (!) for girls and #1447 for boys. Since then, while there have been a few boys named “Madison” per million births, it’s never ranked in the top 2000 as a boy’s name, while it remains in the top 40 for girls. So yeah, apparently we haven’t seen the very last of the male “Madisons” yet, but sometime in the 1960s or 1970s there was born the first of the female “Madisons” (within the current naming trend, at least; I wouldn’t swear that there was never any girl named “Madison” in earlier decades, but it’s statistically indistinguishable from zero). ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/168 "2025-07-21T00:45:07Z")
‘Splash’ (1984) for Madison. Probably ‘Summer of 42’ for the Jennifer uptick in the 1970s. And the list goes on. ---
**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 21, 2025, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/169 "2025-07-21T00:50:39Z")
I didn’t mean to imply make Madisons were non-existent- just that when male and female Madisons are plotted on the same scale, I (at least) can’t see the boys at all. You have to view only the boys to see them at all ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/170 "2025-07-21T01:12:40Z")
Interesting! On my screen when I plot both genders of Madisons, I get a very clear blue lower edge, beginning in the 1880s and ending around the 2000s, on the bottom of the scale. Including on the massive pink peak erupting from nowhere in the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![mattgg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@mattgg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mattgg)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/171 "2025-07-21T09:29:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It can be a little confusing to have cousins with the same name, and so I think it would be completely reasonable for family members to discuss this (in advance) and agree on different names. If everyone involved so agrees. I share a name with a cousin who’s six years younger than me. My extended family spent a lot of time together when we were young and it was confusing and annoying. Everyone had to qualify which of us they were talking about. It sucks for me even now because as far as I can tell we’re the only two people with our name. At least we’re the only two who show up in internet searches. My cousin posts stupid shit. Some racist, a lot just dumb. Some people have incorrectly attributed his dumb shit to me. It helps that I can tell them that the only things that are me are things from my job. That’s my only presence on the internet. I have scrubbed everything else. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/172 "2025-07-21T14:35:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > 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. Maybe 15 years ago, if I didn’t know the name of one of my male (college freshman) students, I’d just say “Ryan”, and probably get it right. It’s now a girls’ name for high schoolers, and I think might be more common already for girls than for boys. I also know multiple "Emerson"s, two of whom are only two years apart, one a boy and the other a girl. Though so far as I know they’ve never met each other. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > 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. There was a male Leslie in my high school graduating class. Nobody ever gave him any guff over it, but then, nobody ever gave that guy any guff over anything. ---
**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 21, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/173 "2025-07-21T15:52:38Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I didn’t mean to imply make Madisons were non-existent- just that when male and female Madisons are plotted on the same scale, I (at least) can’t see the boys at all. You have to view only the boys to see them at all > [@Kimstu](#): > > Interesting! On my screen when I plot both genders of Madisons, I get a very clear blue lower edge, beginning in the 1880s and ending around the 2000s, on the bottom of the scale. Including on the massive pink peak erupting from nowhere in the 1980s. The Great Karnak predicts that @Andy_L is looking at the chart on a phone and @Kimstu is on a full-sized screen. ---
**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 21, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/174 "2025-07-21T16:25:18Z")
Correct for me ---
**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 21, 2025, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/175 "2025-07-21T16:28:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Maybe 15 years ago, if I didn’t know the name of one of my male (college freshman) students, I’d just say “Ryan”, and probably get it right. It’s now a girls’ name for high schoolers, and I think might be more common already for girls than for boys. I knew a girl Ryan, but she spelled it Ryann. Slightly off-topic, I had a coworker named Eddy. He was from Hong Kong, and he chose that name as his “American” name. When his brother emigrated, he asked Eddy what the names were like, and Eddy said Eddy and Edward and something else. His brother chose Edward not realizing it was the “long form” of Eddy. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/176 "2025-07-21T17:14:54Z")
I know of a family with two sons named James and Jimmy, at least that’s what they’ve always been called. The dad was married to a woman he married while deployed overseas, and she didn’t know that Jimmy was a diminutive of James. Don’t know why the dad didn’t get her up to speed ahead of time. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/177 "2025-07-21T17:16:42Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > So what do you guys think? Would you be upset if a loved one named their baby the name you were going to give yours? No, and if I ever did that, please euthanize me. 😳 ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/178 "2025-07-21T17:30:36Z")
My name has been in the family for generations. Legend has it I am the fourteenth in a row, Orville Mogul XIV. The name was always given to the first born male. That is until my cousin (dad’s brother’s son) decided to use it on his daughter, Bertha Orville Mogul. Yeah, I know we have the same grandfather, but the lack of respect for hundreds of years of tradition does kinda piss me off. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/179 "2025-07-21T19:34:01Z")
Not sure I get the objection: your first cousin’s daughter being given her grandfather’s name as a middle name isn’t in any way changing your family’s tradition of giving the name to every firstborn son, is it? Heck, traditionally even identical names could be used in collateral branches of the same family, distinguished by the suffix “II” instead of “Jr.”. Like, if Dad was Scaup Bongo Waffletok and gave you his name, you would be known as Scaup Bongo Waffletok Jr. But if Dad’s brother also chose to call his son Scaup Bongo, that kid would be known as Scaup Bongo Waffletok II. So the concept of reusing a special multigenerational name within different branches of the same family has a lot of tradition behind it. (And yes, the Great Karnak is correct about my screen viewing of the name graph chart.) ---
**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 21, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853/180 "2025-07-21T19:35:09Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > I know of a family with two sons named James and Jimmy I have a friend named James whose partner is named Jim. It took me a little while to get used to that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-feel-that-people-who-get-proprietary-over-baby-names-have-a-point/1020853.md?page=10)