"Girls" Names For Boys?

I know adult men named Loren, Jodie, Grace and Kiki..

Tracey
Valentine
Jerry / Terry
Pat

Rose can also be a surname, though can't it. Therefore I'd assume it was either mum or dads surname and they were using it as middle name.

Francis is not unisex. That is the male version. The female is Frances.
Marian is a male name in some countries.
As are Simone, Andrea, etc.

I know a baby boy with the middle name Rose and I think it works so beautifully. It was so refreshing to hear 😍

There's a male crime writer called Kerry Wilkinson, and I know a male Beverly, but I agree that the general trend is that, once a name starts to be given to girls, it becomes "devalued" as a boy's name and becomes far less common in men. I know that Lesley isn't exactly a fashionable girl's name at the moment, but I think Leslie is even less so for boys. The youngest one I know personally is in his 70s!

The only name I can think of that is truly unisex is Ashley, but I wouldn't be surprised if it became more common for girls over the next couple of decades.

@NewAccount270219: I'd have thought Ashley was more commonly a girl's name. I was at school with one in the 1970s. My daughter was at school with a female Casey.

And as someone said earlier, Lesley is the female version of Leslie.

I knew a huge beast of a man called Julie and could never get my head around it!

I know a boy called Joy.

I know a man called Verity.

I like Kim and Kelly

It's cultural sexism which has been ingrained for a long time. More masculinity is supposedly a promotion, more femininity a demotion. That's why it only tends to happen in one direction.

RoseGold, if you are a fan of trash tv, like I am 😂 there is a female Kyle on housewives of Beverly Hills. She is (or was) an American tv soap actress.
I think once you know someone of that name, it just becomes them.

rose gold
Kyle
Rylie
Lesley
Cameron
Alex
Chris
Francis
Ashley
Blair
Casey
Drew

With the exception of Alex (always understood to be short for Alexandra), Chris (short for Christine) and maybe Blair and Cameron I think those are all very clearly boy's names. I cannot imagine calling a little girl Kyle.

I really like short names that are unisex sounding anyway, DD is Jean, and DS is looking likely to be Ren.
It’s a very interesting article.
Shows how ingrained gender biases are really.

Op, a gender neutral name is fine. You want to virtue signal via your child and call him Fifi, that's your call.

That's not the point of the article or thread.

That article is so true, and it's something that I've really noticed in myself, to my shame - I know if I'd had a DD I would have dressed her in dinosaurs and blue, but I never even glance at the girls' section for DS. I once dressed him (as a newborn!) in what I thought was a unisex vest with a tiny bit of pink on it and I was met with confusion when I said he was a boy, even at my local sling meet, the home of hippiness!

I do think it's interesting and true that Blake Lively can call a girl James and it's just slightly weird, but if she'd called a boy Lucy everyone would think she was totally mad, and a bit cruel. They also would have thought she 'really' wanted a girl, which no one ever thinks about the girl-named-a-boys-name, in part because we seem to be in a place where, even though we don't value teen or adult women at all, little girls are now considered to be obviously and clearly more desirable than little boys

Also weren't Florence and Evelyn originally boys names.

Afaik 'florence' derives from St Florentina who was female.

Evelyn is (I think?) somewhat unusual in having been used for both sexes for quite a long time (I bet it's declined in popularity for boys as it rose for girls though). Evelyn Waugh's wife also had this name so they were known as 'he-evelyn' and 'she-evelyn'.

Francis is the male version of Frances.

Leslie IS a boy's name. It's the male version of Lesley.

Op, a gender neutral name is fine. You want to virtue signal via your child and call him Fifi, that's your call.

dont know if these are originally girls or boys names but are defo unisex

Kyle
Rylie
Lesley
Cameron
Alex
Chris
Francis
Ashley
Blair
Casey
Drew

I remember going about 26 years ago and a women was expecting.
I wasnt friends with her but knew her to say "Hello" and exchange pleasantries, anyway.
She named her dd Robyn and I remember thinking.
" What a weird name for a girl."
Yet Now I couldnt Imagine it on a boy.
Also weren't Florence and Evelyn originally boys names.
So perhaps it could go like with James for example.
One day in 100 years time Ava could top the name charts for boys and it could become unheard for girls.
Then 30 years after that someone could use it for their dd and people may say "Ava? That's a funny name for girl". And older generations will be saying. " Well it was originally a girl's name".

Leslie is used as a boys name...

It is (always was) a boys' name - yes, there are some which end in 'ie' but quite a few of those are ones which have become 'girls'. In that case, as Lesley, but as mentioned Lindsey, Hillary and Shirley.

As the piece said, this isn't new and it's pretty much only a one way street. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I was surprised by finding that many names of girls I knew had once been 'boys' names - Kim, Vivian (spelled that way, not the 'feminised' Vivienne), Hilary, Evelyn, Beverly. Leslie/Lesley was about the only one I can remember which was used for both at that time that I knew of.

There are quite a few names which seem to have changed from boy to girl names, off the top of my head I can think of Lindsey, Hillary and Shirley, but I know there are more. It’s very much once the name has made the jump it never goes back to being a boys name.

Leslie is used as a boys name....