BOY/GIRLS NAMES

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Do you think in 100 years having different names for girls and boys will exist? Having the discussion with by DH and would like to know what others think.

Why wouldn't they?

I like to think some day the names of my schooldays will be trendy again; Lee, Darren, Gary, Lisa, Claire & Joanne.

Yes.

It makes evolutionary sense for people to easily distinguish males from females.

It therefore makes evolutionary sense for social fashions to emphasize rather than hide the fact we are different sexes. The specific names and fashions change from generation to generation.

So no I doubt naming conventions or even fashions that distinguish the sexes are going to completely go away. Even if practical day to day wear has converged a lot.

(Also naming that mostly distinguishes the sexes has been around for thousands of years. What's special about the next hundred?)

We have for thousands of years until now, not sure why another 100 would make a difference to that.

Some will differ, some will be used for either, some will be used for girls in one country and boys in another.

Do you have opposing views on this? And are you trying to name a centenarian?

Sikhs do not distinguish between names for boys and girls. The name is chosen from the Granth Sahib irrespective of sex. So, e.g. Charanjit can be a boy or a girl. However, a boy will be Charanjit Singh + family name and a girl with be Charanjit Kaur + family name. (Singh means lion, kaur means princess - same word as kore in Greek, I think, but the Greek word means maiden or girl.)
Also girls in some families wear turbans or pre-turbans (I can't remember the correct name for this, sorry!) just like boys.

We don't just have male and female names in our culture - we also have a small number of gender neutral names and a tendency for names to move from male to gender neutral and then to female - for instance Beverley or Ashley. The reasons for this are fairly sexist so it will be interesting to see whether in the future names remain gender neutral and also whether names start to also move the other way as people become happy about giving girls' names to boys.

The main name where this is happening at the moment is probably Taylor and I think it is happening with River as well. So I think it will be interesting to see whether they completely disappear as boys' names in the near future or whether people are happier than they used to be about giving a boy an girl's name.

I might be wrong but there seems to be a bigger trend of giving girls a boys name now than in the past. Think Robyn, Terri even James.
I’ve also heard of more boys called Jesse and Jean. I do think there is still a huge sexist under current whereby it’s seen as fine for a girl to have a traditionally boys name but not for a boy to have a traditionally girls name.

Also I have noticed in films where there is a strong female character, she is often given a gender neutral or male name. Charlie in top gun. Ripley in Alien. Rae in Star Wars.

Well, if I ever have a boy, I'll name him
Frank or George or Bill or Tom….

If current trends continue, I doubt it, in the same way that separate fashions for men and women probably aren't going to go away. There are a small number of unisex names but they aren't among the most popular choices (and when a name gets popular for girls, parents of boys usually stop using it anyway e.g. Lesley, Lindsay). Plus people often want to use names with meaning, history, namesakes (grandparents' names etc) and these names are almost always gendered.

I agree about the boys name to neutral to girls name trend.

I think its more about fear of being bullied when they get to school than anything else.

Just spotted this - nice one, AMansAManForAllThat, you could change your username to AManIn BlacksAManForAllThat😂

I found myself getting annoyed when I read about an American man called Frances instead of Francis. Not a rational response - in the grand scheme of things so what if he calls himself Frances not Francis?

But it goes to show how deeply ingrained the boy/girl name thing is.
Even in me

If I recall correctly, in terms of fashion you tend to get more differentiation between men's and women's clothing styles, where there is less differernce in male vs female social roles.

If that pattern were to hold I'd tend to suspect that differernt names according to sex would persist so long as we have men and women fulfilling very similar social roles.

More of todays Boys names will ve considered Girls names... like how Meredith, Lindsay etc have changed.

Maybe some radicals will start using traditional girls names for their sons.

But sexism won't have disappeared

If it's Jesse (rather than Jessie), I think that's one of those men's names from the Bible, like Joshua and Jonathan.
Jean could be quite ambiguous too, as Jean in French is a boy's name ( but that's pronounced Zhon rather than like a pair of jeans, so I suppose it depends how they say it.)

100 years is not that much time. I don't see why the practice of male and female names would disappear.....when males and females will still exist and be, to some extent, distinct from each other?

We see trends and fashions in names come and go ( often based on celebrities), and we also see some very old names that always persist, and even others that come back into fashion after decades in decline. There have always been a few names which can be given to either boys or girls.

My granddaughter is Alex - which can be given to a girl or a boy, though the long forms vary slightly. Alexandra/Alexander.

I know of an American family who named their son Megan to honour his father’s Welsh roots. 😆

I think it's seen as "cool" in some way to give a girl a boy's name but not vice versa.

I've been reminded of a conversation I had about seventeen years ago in a baby group.

Another mum asked me what my baby boy's name was and it went something like this.

Me: Dylan.

Her: Dylan? My friend's daughter is called Dylan. How do you spell it?

Me: D Y L A N.

Her: That's the same as my friend's daughter. I've never heard of a boy called Dylan.

Me: It's a Welsh name. It means 'son of the sea.'

She shook her head in bafflement that I'd lumbered my son with what she perceived to be a girl's name.

It's kind of interesting that a name that has for centuries been a boy's name was (in her eyes) unsuitable for a boy because a girl had been given that name. I can't help thinking there is some kind of internalised sexism in that line of thinking.

Also I had to suppress the urge to say, "have you never heard of Dylan Thomas, you philistine?"

To be fair, most people when I told them his name would mention Dylan Thomas or Bob Dylan, or ask if me or DP were Welsh. (My grandfather was Welsh.)

In Alien, Riplys first name was Ellen, the same as my mother’s middle name. She was from a very traditional catholic family, so no gender nutritionally there.

Devastated to discover I'm not trendy 😞

Joanne Rowling will be crying too (or maybe not)

..... Anything but Sue!

Like Marion, originally a boys' name. Ditto Esme (m. French - one of James VI and I favourite's was called Esme).