There used to be a strict difference in spelling Lindsay/Lindsey, with the a being “a” male name, and the “e” being female, and back when people adhered strictly to the distinction, Lindsay was fairly common as a man’s name. But when the “cre8tiv” spelling trend thing started to creep into action-- and it began in the 70s, even if it wasn’t really in full swing for a couple more decades, people began to disregard the a/e distinction for this name (not to mention spelling it Lyndsee, Linsie, and the list goes on), at which point it pretty much ceased to be a male name.
Marion stopped being a male name when people started spelling the girls’ name that way, but for some reason, that actually happened a long time ago, like the 1940s, or thereabouts, way before the creative spelling trend, when male/female spelling distinctions were still generally adhered to, and you could safely name a boy Vivian, because everyone knew the girls’ name was spelled Vivien.
I’ve always wondered why “Marian” as a name spelling went the way of the Dodo. Maybe people wanted it clear it wasn’t pronounced “Mary Ann,” when they spelled it “Marion.”
One of my grandfathers was born in 1902 in England. His family emigrated to the US shortly thereafter. His given name was Vivian. When I met him in the 1960s he hated that name with a passion and had done so since the 1920s. It had become a girls name (at least in the US) and as far as he was concerned he had been “a boy named Sue” since he could remember. Over the years he lived in Chicago, LA, & San Francisco, and mostly worked in big business, so not small town clueless rural America.
So not so clear cut as all that, not even well before the 1940s.
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The name of the movie was Splash.
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ETA: And yes, the Wiki page for the movie confirms that the name was extremely rare and not well-known as a person’s given name (male or female) until Madison in the movie took that name for herself, prompted by seeing the street sign for Madison Ave in New York.
What’s the current deal with Laverne. I had an aunt Laverne on one side and an uncle LaVerne(went by Vern) on the other. It generally seemed to be a very 50-50 name, but with most of the dudes going with Vern.
Thinking about it more now I guess the current state of the name is dead. Since I can’t think of anyone under 55 with the name at all.
My bad on the title. I actually couldn’t remember it, and I coulda sworn I’d written “that Mermaid movie.” Thanks for providing the title. I should have taken the time to look it up.
I think it was more commonly a man’s name until the Andrews Sisters, then it became much more popular as a woman’s name. It also became very dated for the same reason. There was a glut of Laverne girls born after WWII (probably Patricias and Maxines too, but those names were already popular), and then it lost its shine. Kinda like everyone who was 12 when One Day at a Time was on the air grew up to have a daughter named Mackenzie, so there was a huge glut of them from about 1988-1996, and then the name was so overused, it died out.