Are you sure you aren’t thinking of the older guy who sings (or used to) with Billy Graham, George Beverly Shea?
I’ve known a couple of male Stacys. (Altho one decided to legally change it.) One famous fictional male Ashley was in GWTW, or course.
And I get the occasional Wal-Mart clerk who patiently explains to me that I can’t use my wife’s credit card, necessitating a patient explanation in return on my part. :rolleyes:
I find it interesting that no one has mentioned Marion Michael Morrison aka John Wayne yet. 
Just my 0.02:
I know a male Ashley
And a female Kevin
Let’s not forget the late Shirley Povich, father of Maury Povich and a helluva sports writer. He was once included in a listing of Famous Women In America, or something like that.
Well, for what it’s worth, I had an Uncle Stacy (the man was probably born in the late 18th or early 20th Century). My niece is named after him.
Mrs. Dave-Guy and I both admired a college professor we had, so we named our daughter after him. Lindsay.
When our son was born, we decided to name him after the homocidal computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
My mother gets oddly addressed mail all the time. Her first name is Curtisteen (honest), and our last name is also a first name. So she often gets mail addressed to “Mr. W________ Curtisteen.”
My mom has friends (female friends that is) one named Frankie and one named Johnnie.
My sister’s name, Meredith, used to be for guys.
There was a kid in my 5th grade class whose father’s name was Alice.
I’ve always considered the name Carey female (Kerri, Kari, Carrie, etc.) to be female, but I’m seeing it used more and more for males (Cary Elwes for example).
Dale is considered female now?? When did this happen?
I’m sorry, but that is just beyond stupid. To address the original topic: No, I am not a big fan of these “unisex” names. I’m also not a fan of “We’re naming our firstborn Bruce regardless of it’s gender!” either. Just my $0.02.
Alice or Ellis? My grandfather’s name was Ellis, and I get strange looks when I say it, until I spell it out. Even so, it’s not a common name for men - only pop culture reference I can think of offhand is Ellis De Walt, the bad guy in Beverly Hills Cop 3.
I too have trouble with varients of Carey being male names - specifically, I consider Kerry to be female, but it’s really more common as a male name, I understand. A name I mentioned in another thread, Riley, is to me a boy’s name, yet there are little girls named Rylee and Ryleigh springing up all over the place. It’s a shame so many boys names are feminised, because there aren’t that many great boys names anyway, and once they cross to the female side there ain’t no coming back.
I’ve seen James used as a girls name, which is just awful and should be illegal!
Dale Evans comes to mind.
Nope, it was Alice. Only reason I knew (he wasn’t going to tell anyone I’m sure, 5th graders aren’t known for their sensitivity) was that there was a class roster that listed address, phone, parents, etc. His mother’s name was Sharon and his dad was Alice.
I dig the name Ellis. Ellis Marsalis, apart from being a great musician, has a great name.
Robin seems to be an exclusively female name in the U.S. (and Canada?) and a male name in Britain. (Australia? S.A.?)
i went to high school with a guy named stacey and a girl named stanley. not related to each other.
i have to say i’m a little bumfuzzled by the “non-gender specific” names that are popular right now. it’s a bit confusing when i’m walking zootdog in the park and some mother yells “carson, get over here” and 2 girls and a boy all look to see whose mom just called.
and when they’re newborns or little tiny ones, it’s even worse. parents seem to get really defensive when you can’t tell just by looking if the baby is a boy or a girl. i work in the medical field, and i see a lot of little ones every day. usually, when i’m warming up the family, i spend most of my time trying to get to know the patient. if the patient is a little one, i usually say somthing like " hi there, pretty baby, what’s your name?" this is meant to give me a clue as to the baby’s gender without saying “so, is it a boy or a girl?” parents hate when you ask that question. what i hate is when i do my “what’s your name” bit and the parent says (baby voice)" tell her, my name’s daltry" or “taylor” or “tyler” or “delaney”, or any of the other myriad of names that can go either way. thanks, mom, that’s a big help. now i have to make you mad by saying “and is daltry a girl?” don’t get PO’ed at me if you gave the kid a name that tells me nothing about your child’s gender!!! i’m not gonna take off the baby’s diaper to find out. if i have to ask, just answer the question without the “well, if you can’t tell…” attitude. name the kid “john” or “mary” if you don’t want people asking!
wow, that got a little more intense than i had intended. sorry, didn’t mean to make that a rant!
OP: carol. started out male, turned female. i have known several “sidney’s”, of both genders. where did that one start out? male or female?
John Wayne’s not the only Marion. I know male Marions. Also Male Lynns.
Actually, this is odd, but I know a girl whose family has a tradition of the children marrying spouses whose names are the same. As in Marion/Marian, Lynne/Lynn. I know this sounds odd as hell, but apparently it happened once as a lark, and then the next generation did it, and now they sort of TRY to do it. The girl I knew (my age) was named Joelle, deliberately named a boyish name by her parents so she would have an easier time (presumably) finding a matching spouse-name. To my knowledge, she’s still going through life paying special interest to guys named Joel.
I am not making this up.
In Sweden it could be either, but it’s predominantly male. According to Statistics Sweden it’s 193 women to 23 809 men. What about Kim (3 628 women to 7 770 men)?
And Marian is a men’s name in Polish.
Pat Robertson’s first name is Marion.
I knew some Robin’s who were male. I knew a male Kim although that name is almost exclusively female. My own first name is Kay, and I got all sorts of junk male sent to Ms. Kay when in fact I’m a guy and use my middle boring biblical name exclusively. My daughter Jacqueline has a very femine name but can be shortened to either gender.
If you want a beer name to go with Miller (congrats!), then I favor Porter. Has a nice ring to it.
Celebrities provide lots of good sources for gender-bender names: Michael Learned (and one of the chicks from the Bangles was named Michael, too), Dale Bozzio (female lead singer of Missing Persons) Stacy Keach, Ashley Hamilton (son of George, ex-husband of Shannen Doherty), Carroll O’Connor.
As to Cary/Kerry/Carrie/Carey, I’ve always seen Cary and Karey as exclusively male spellings, Carrie and Keri as exclusively female, with Kerry and Carey being the loose cannon versions, equally applied to either gender.
I went to school with a male Kim (short for Kimberland, actually) a male Stacy, a male Lynn (named for football great Lynn Swann) and there were three people in my class named “Tracy/Tracey/Tracie” - I was the “ey” and my best friend was the “ie” but the “y” was a boy who we hated. He’s married to my sister now.
Nikita.
If I remember correctly, it’s actually a MALE name.
In North America, it’s become a female name. And a TV series.
E
Pat is another male/female name. It’s also dangerous instructions if the woman is wearing a name tag.
Claire is unisex.
I also know a woman named “Miller”.
I grew up with a neighbor named “Mitchell”. His last name was “Ricky”. (That was it’s own set of problems.)