Ooops

[Buntysoven]

A friend....not close...has proudly announced the name of her daughter. Ettienne. Isn't it French for Stephen? Do you think she knows? Being a little bitchy but honestly where will this girls having boy's names end? "Meet my twin daughters Lionel and Pierre"

Def a boy's name but babycentre apparently lists it as a girl's name....? www.babycenter.com/baby-names-ettienne-444925.htm

Being a little bitchy

I agree.

That's not how you spell it and I really don't think it's French for Stephen. That would be Stephane (can't do accents in my phone). In any case, lots of names are unisex and/or have shifted from being more common for boys to more common for girls or vice versa.

You can do what you like these days. Look at Zuckerberg calling his daughter Max and Ryan Reynolds calling his daughter James.

I am sure she knows. I like boys names on girls.

Yes it’s a misspelled French form of Stephen.
Weird name for a girl.

Ah, supposed to be Etienne (not 'tt'). And yes it's French for Stephen..... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne

I've only ever known one Ettienne who is a 20-something year old woman

it's definitely not Etaoin is it? That's a girl's name.

Lionel Shriver gets by with a man's name.

It may well be a French male name when spelled Etienne, but spelled Ettienne it hardly matters, we've been borrowing foreign names and feminising them for centuries. It's like a version of Etty, which is a nickname for Edith or Edna... It's a nice name whether for a girl or a boy, who cares. There's a celebrity who called their daughter James... which I like!

I always thought it was a girl's name.

Oh no ,I'm mistaken I'm thinking of the woman in The Beach and it's the man.

But this is how names evolve

My name evolved from an Ancient Greek noun to a surname via a Roman male first name to a bog standard northern European female first name.

It sounds feminine to me. Maybe your friend doesn't know it's a male name but just likes it?

The -enne ending makes it sound feminine imo

It's a boys name in France (one t). Definitely. But, you know, each to their own I guess.