Giving girls boys names?

[purplebridgett]

What do you think?

Are boys names on girls a complete no-no? Or are they ok as long as they are spelt differently e.g. Teri, Toni, Ashleigh, Jaime? Or can you just go for it e.g. like Sean Young (the actress in Bladerunner) or Ashley Judd? (Or do you have to be an American to get away with it?!)

I kind of like James, Finley, Tristan and Toby for a girl.

Interesting question. I think a lot of us assume that a person's name SHOULD indicate his or her gender.

A schoolfriend was called Justine but even so she was constantly mistaken for a boy by people who didn't read her name closely and assumed she was a Justin (so her peg was in the boy's cloakroom etc etc).

Personally I wouldn't as I think there are plenty of strong female names and also female names which can have unisex short forms without landing your child with a name which is completely ambiguous. I'm married to a Nick and have male and female friends in equal measure who I call Nick, ditto for Chris.

Just thought of another example. my grandfather was a Cornelius and was known as Corey, just like the Radio 4 female presenter Corrie Corfield, who presumably is a Cornelia.

Gwendoline, am I your quote of the week in a good way or a bad way?! Thank you everybody for your comments. I would hate people to think that if I had a daughter and gave her a traditionally masculine name I didn't want her but I still think that ideally names should be gender-neutral. Call me a mad old feminist but I live for the day when, apart from the unavoidable ones, there are no differences between men and women...

I met a Peter girl at hv group her mum was very snotty when people assumed she was a he, particuaraly when she always was in navy
No problem with it but don't be surprised when people assume wrong...

Purplebrigett- would you call your son Sylvia?

I'm confused, you think non unisex names are sexist but you are glad you werent called Amelie because you aren't feminine. By your own logic, wouldn't it help if not all Amelies were really girly and some were boys?!

Do tou remember that song
Goodbye Sam
Hello Samantha
Goodbye Joe
Hello Joanne ?
totally irrelevant I know.
Lots of unisex names around but not keen on 'A boy named Sue'[Johnny Cash] or the female equivalent.

Did you know ALL traditionally sikh names are unisex?

My son has a unisex name. It has only once caused confusion and that was with a foreign agency. He really, really suits his name and loves it. I can't see any problem giving a child a unisex name.

You would have to accept that if you gave a name that wasn't unisex to a different sex then it would result in confusion and it would be you who had caused the confusion - not the confused party iykwim.

I like names that are somewhat gender ambiguous. I like lots of soft names ending in -a for boys, and lots of shorter names ending in -er, -o etc. for girls.

I don't think it sends the right message to just give girls boys' names, though. I'd rather have something that was slightly less obviously gendered.

At the moment my favourite names are Asa and Hero.

OP, no differences between men and women - really, the same, rather than equal? Ok, you are... well quite a particular sort of old-school feminist anyway.

There are some lovely unisex names if you want to revel in ambiguity - Rowan, Jocelyn um... lots of other ones!

My niece has a name that is usually associated with men. She is moderately well known in her academic field, and is very fed up with people assuming she is a man. She once got stranded at an airport in the middle of the night because the driver sent for her scanned the available passengers, saw no one who loooked to him like Dr x x, and assumed that "he" had missed the flight!

Generally speaking in my experience children really, really don't like gender qmbiguity!

I love Robin for a girl. Also love Patsy. My own name is definitely female but it looks foreign (it's Welsh) and a lot of folk assume I'm a man. I don't care, quite like it actually! Saw Corrie on here - REALLY like that. Might squirrel it away for later use...!

"A schoolfriend was called Justine but even so she was constantly mistaken for a boy by people who didn't read her name closely and assumed she was a Justin (so her peg was in the boy's cloakroom)"

Her peg was in the boys' cloakrooom? Surely the school should wait until they MEET the children before deciding on the gender. Lots of unisex names (Alex, Sam, Chris etc or Sikh names) - you can't just assume a gender, can you?