To wonder why it's OK - even considered a positive thing- to give girls names that are traditionally considered boy's names but....

[BertrandRussell]

.......not the other way round?

Slightlyglitter - It's not about being anyone's "fault"

If you had a baby boy, would you call him Lucia? I suspect not - mainly because you would not want him to be laughed at in general life and yes, this is because the 'feminine' is seen as demeaning to men.

The question is, even if it was acceptable in society, would you still WANT to choose a feminine name for your son? If not, why?

Beau is a French word, not a French name.

But as I said, I am still waiting for some of the "names are gender neutral" to join the thread............

It's very popular as a girls name is Scotland.

I'm Scottish and I've never met anyone with Mackenzie as a first name, male or female. Not one.

this is because the 'feminine' is seen as demeaning to men

True. Masculine is equally demeaning to girls though, isn't it? "Look at her strong silhouette*/ strong jaw / broad shoulders / big forearms..."

But as I said, I am still waiting for some of the "names are gender neutral" to join the thread... ...

Basing this on nothing more than my memory of teaching both sexes with this name:

Riley

Charlie

Jordan

Blake

|Alexis

I've taught or known boys and girls with this name and if I saw them on a register, don't think I'd guess their sex.

*thank god for spellcheck!

I completely agree and actually reading over the last year or so some comments to this affect on the Baby Names boards have made me add this to a check to any hypothetical future girl's name - is this traditionally exclusively a girl's name?

Would I use a girl's name for a boy? Only in a middle name and only if for instance it was my surname and my DS had his father's surname and my surname also happened to be a girl's name e.g. Rose. If I have these standards towards what I would call a boy I need to be consistent and apply to a girl too (boys name only if it was a family or hereditary thing and as a middle only).

I could hazard a guess

Riley - most likely a boy, given huge popularity for boys, comparatively.

Charlie - same as Riley, even more so as this is a top 10 name. Charley is more popular for girls than boys so that woud be easy

Jordan - a boy, it wasn't as much used for girls anyway, and not at all in recent years.

Blake - predominantly used for boys.

|Alexis - more popular for girls so that would be my first guess.

Don't know any male Charlie's below the age of 45 but do know 2 girls (Charley) aged 14 & 18 - I'd use spelling to determine sex.

Only know male Rileys - one spelt Ryley

Only know one Jordan - male 18 (DD1's bf he could do better ) seems a male name to me

Don't know any Blake's other than Blake Shelton & Blake Lively so wouldn't assume sex if they were under 20 over 20 more likely to be male

Alexis - wouldn't assume sex as aware it's used for both

^It's very popular as a girls name is Scotland.

I'm Scottish and I've never met anyone with Mackenzie as a first name, male or female. Not one.^

I think I'm getting over-invested in this, but I have just checked the email address book for the council that I work for and, amongst thousands of names, there is just one first name Mackenzie who, judging by his job, is almost certainly a man!

@reuset

Well, you were right for each of those according to babynames1000.com. I don't think I've ever met more than 2 or 3 of any of them though. Perhaps they're more common in some parts of the country or world.

Interesting though, they show graphs and popularity of the gender nutral names (their definition) shows that these names generally increase in popularity for both boys and girls, at similar rates. They don't lose popularity with boys once it becomes popular with girls in the majority of cases and others have said.

See Riley, for example.

Interesting point, wett. But that's based on SSA data for the US.

Wett- I'm not meaning names that are gender neutral -although I would argue that they don't really exist (with a handful of exceptions) because they are almost all male names that are also used for girls. The people I would like to hear from on this subject are the people who hold the view that names are actually not gendered at all-or shouldn't be-but take the gender of the person whose name it is.

I looked up the Scottish figures for 2015 - 3 boys called Mackenzie to 10 girls, but 5 boys called Mckenzie to 1 girl (and another girl called Mckenzy). From which I think we can take that it's not enormously popular for either sex.

The Scottish records office records all names given, even to only one baby (unlike the ONS) which makes for an interesting read. Twylabelle, anyone?

Buffy there are many names on that list worse than Twylabelle

Also, think of all the feminine versions of boys' names (Charlotte, Petra, Denise, Gabrielle etc) -- never vice versa

I know it's not the point, but I'm getting distracted with the possibilities of this. Elizabert and Maryfred and Katheren.

My father objected to me having any name that was derived from a male one in case people thought they wanted a Nicholas and settled for a Nicola (or equivalent).

However my name actually is a female variant of a boy's name, and it's also awful. Cheers dad!

And Beau should really be Belle for a girl ... but then we already have Bella from Isabel/Isabella, which I think are actually derived from Elizabeth, but the diminutives have come to intersect with the idea of prettiness!

OP - have you ever read 'The War Between the Tates', by Alison Lurie? Against a backdrop of slightly cynically represented 2nd wave feminism, a woman called Danielle explains the same thing to her friend Erica - that they are essentially 'little Daniel' and 'little Eric' - and she considers changing to Sarah.

NotLady I picked the one that appealed to me.

I googled researched the effect of naming when I was pregnant with my first DC - there's some interesting stuff about race and class but the bit that's relevant to this discussion is:

www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.livescience.com/6569-good-bad-baby-names-long-lasting-effects.html?client=ms-android-orange-gb

From which I took that in the world we're living in, it's better not to give your son a "girl's name", and that naming girls is an enormous responsibility.

*I know a male Hilary and male Ashley. Know of one male Meredith in my family tree (born in the 1950s). There was a male Leslie at school (though we are veering towards the spelling differences now). Vivian Anderson was the first black footballer to play for England.

I think there is a trend towards making names unisex. It obviously wont work for all names but many will.*

None of those are examples of traditionally female names used on males as every single one of those are traditional boys' names that have been feminised until many people actually think of them as predominantly girls' names.

The One irritating thing is that the angel names - Michael, Gabriel, Raphael - should come without any gender connotations at all, since angels, per the Bible, are neither male nor female.

But they are important personages, so guess what?

The Sikhs have the right idea: all first names are gender neutral.

Hello all, I've come to this a bit late on.
After reading about all the names that started off as boys names and are now seen as unisex/ girls names I was wondering, how many names started out as girls names in the first place?

@LumelaMme

Way OT, but I do like helping people who are entirely wrong.

In the Bible, male pronouns are used eg. "Michael and his Angels", "Mary was greatly troubled at his [Gabriels] words" and “Oh, Lucifer, son of the morning”.

But they are important personages, so guess what?

I don't know. What? That there wasn't workplace equality law as there is now and all the angels were men because of inherent toxic masculinity.

I thought angels were genderless too, but a quick Google seems to indicate not. Bother. Another mark against God!

I know two people whose daughters have a 'masculine' first name, even the spelling is the same (the name is spelt differently to what it is traditionally)... the second half of the name is different though (both are double barrelled). I also went to school with someone with this name as a surname, but the spelling is the 'correct' way.

@FrancisCrawford

Yes it does and Angel is a masculine word in the original. The Hebrew feminine 'nashiym' is used somewhere to talk about two lady angels.

The Bible is a truly disgusting book and religion is the last vestige of misogyny.

Suggesting the Angel names are male because they were stolen by men as Angels had importance is boring though.