# What is the least gender/race/ethnicity specific name combination we can come up with? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 9, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381 "2014-06-09T03:27:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/21 "2014-06-09T18:20:47Z")
Lindsay Patel Lopez Crzhev Li Cohen Mamadov Ng Smyth Jones III ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/22 "2014-06-09T18:53:56Z")
Neither Pat nor Jordan are as international as Kim, though. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/23 "2014-06-09T19:06:24Z")
Kim and Pat are pretty American/British and east Asian; if you want a name that could be from Europe/west Asia, maybe Alexis would work? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/24 "2014-06-09T19:14:21Z")
How about one that can even be reversed? Alexis Lee and Lee Alexis. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/25 "2014-06-09T19:15:59Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Kim and Pat are pretty American/British and east Asian; if you want a name that could be from Europe/west Asia, maybe Alexis would work? Kim could also be African or Indian. I’ve heard of both (and there are famous stories with Kims from at least one part of Africa and from India). I think there might be a better name, but Alexis? Why Alexis? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/26 "2014-06-09T19:17:56Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Kim could also be African or Indian. I’ve heard of both (and there are famous stories with Kims from at least one part of Africa and from India). > > I think there might be a better name, but Alexis? Why Alexis? For the record, I think Kim Lee is much much better. But Alexis is also both male and female, both a first and a last name, and can be from multiple places. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/27 "2014-06-09T19:20:01Z")
I nominate that symbol that Prince was using for a while. Actually, that one’s now associated with him, which taints it… so some other wacky quasi-astrological symbol. Or a number. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/28 "2014-06-09T19:30:13Z")
Vowels are good for that. I came across the last name Akono in a database. It struck me as very non determinate, I could easily see it as Asian, African, romance language, Hawaii, or Finnish, many other places where I could see it fit well enough. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/29 "2014-06-09T19:58:02Z")
I think Lee as the surname pretty much wins that. I can think of a ton of different ethnicities that use that surname. For a given name, I think it gets a bit tougher. Kim works well and is probably a front runner, as others have mentioned, it is both Western and Eastern, and is both a male and female name. When I hear that name, the first two celebrities I think of are Kim Peek (male, famous savant) and Kim Kardashian (female, umm… something), but obviously not limited to American culture either, as it’s a diminutive in Scandinavian and Slavic (short for variations on Joakim, depending on the language) and obviously tied to Asian names too. So Kim could cover English speaking countries, Western and Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia too. That said, none of these would work for Western Asia or Africa or Latin America. If we wanted to do that, a first name would probably have to have Biblical origin, and one that doesn’t change much from one language to another. That would obviously cover a lot of Europe, Latin America, parts of the middle East and even parts of Africa, and I’ve known some people born in Asian countries with large Christian populations, like South Korea, that have Biblical names. I’m not sure what Biblical name would see the last change language to language. Maybe something like Mike, as I’ve seen it as short for Michael, Mikael/Mikaela, Miguel, though it does lean strongly male even if occassionally female. Maybe a variant of Jo instead? It can be short for Joeseph, Josephina, Joanne, etc. so it would fit both sexes and may fit into several other languages too. ---
**Author:** ![Cognoscant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Cognoscant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cognoscant)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/30 "2014-06-10T00:06:08Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Lindsay Patel Lopez Crzhev Li Cohen Mamadov Ng Smyth Jones III …of Ulm. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/31 "2014-06-10T00:08:39Z")
Tonto Goldstein (But his friends call him, “Bubba”) . ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/32 "2014-06-10T12:12:42Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > Tonto Goldstein > > (But his friends call him, “Bubba”) > . I went to college with a girl named Lotus Goldstein. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/33 "2014-06-10T14:05:28Z")
“Baby Doe.” ☹ ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/34 "2014-06-10T15:18:59Z")
For a first name, I’d choose an Arabic one. You could be meeting a Bosnian, Kenyan or an Indonesian. I don’t know what (if any) Arabic names are unisex. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/35 "2014-06-10T18:38:23Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > Per **Manda JO** I think Pat leans female and Kim definitely does. I’m European and to me Pat leans male. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/36 "2014-06-11T02:48:10Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > For a first name, I’d choose an Arabic one. You could be meeting a Bosnian, Kenyan or an Indonesian. I don’t know what (if any) Arabic names are unisex. Here’s a list of [Arabic unisex given names](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arabic_unisex_given_names). I’m liking Amal Lee, although Gul Lee may be even better. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/37 "2014-06-11T02:57:05Z")
As a first name, what about flowers? Of course, they’re not gender neutral, but I’d have a hard time guessing the nationality of a Lily, Rose, Daisy, Lilac, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/38 "2014-06-11T03:05:06Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Vowels are good for that. I came across the last name Akono in a database. It struck me as very non determinate, I could easily see it as Asian, African, romance language, Hawaii, or Finnish, many other places where I could see it fit well enough. Definitely not Finnish. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/39 "2014-06-11T11:33:30Z")
How about gender and ethnicity-misleading names? If she weren’t already famous, and I showed you a lineup of twenty people of random gender and ethnicity, and told you “pick out the one whose name is **Cameron Diaz** ,” I have to imagine she wouldn’t be one of your top ten picks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381/40 "2014-06-11T14:44:31Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Here’s a list of [Arabic unisex given names](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arabic_unisex_given_names). > > I’m liking Amal Lee, although Gul Lee may be even better. Speaking of vaguely-Abrahamic names, how about Jo Lee? I went to university with a Jo Lee. Kim Jo Lee? Even the order is ambiguous… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-least-gender-race-ethnicity-specific-name-combination-we-can-come-up-with/690381.md?page=3)