US boy names that became girl names and vice versa

neutronicus

I'm gonna credit George RR Martin with flipping Arya in the mid '90s

cortesoft

I feel like a lot of these can be tied to one famous person with the name causing the gender to flip.

billyp-rva

> Of the 42 names that moved toward girls, 34 were driven mainly by an increase among girls, rather than a decline among boys. > Surprisingly, the same pattern held in the opposite direction. Of the 12 names that moved toward boys, 9 shifted mainly because fewer girls were receiving them, rather than because more boys were. In other words, whichever way a name moved, the biggest change usually came from girls. This is consistent with the observation that girl's names are more dynamic.

asimovfan

Stevie is a girl's name now?

Fnoord

My biggest WTF on this (as a foreigner) was the late Lindsey Graham. I always knew Lindsey/Lindsay as a female name. Either way, peeking through the list, seems to me names which end with a vowel are usually feminine. However, there's a caveat: names end up shortened, and over time even those get shortened. 'Brit', 'Britney' for 'Brittany'. 'Gerry' or 'Geri' or 'Ger' for 'Gareth' (Dutch variant: 'Gerrit'), 'Pat', 'Patty' for 'Patrick', 'Patricia'. 'Pen', 'Penny' for 'Penelope' 'Ash' for 'Ashley'. 'Tash' or 'Tasha' for 'Natasha', 'Nata(s)cha' (a variant of Nathan/Nathaniel?) 'Toni', 'Tony', or 'Ton' for 'Antonia', 'Anton', or 'Antonius'. Skimming through the quick examples I came up with, one thing stands out: if it ends with an 'a', feminine. I believe this stems from Latin? It also appears Brittany is a very British example, whereas say 'Tony' stems from a Catholic background. People with that background get very traditional names, but they're always practically shortened. Annoyingly, you'd have to mention your complete name on say a form, but otherwise you get a wider choice since you have like three names, and they're relatively long so more variety to pick from.

moralestapia

Surprised to not see "Jordan" in there, it's the first one that came to my mind.

goda90

A name I was surprised by was someone I know naming their daughter Miles/Myles, which is such a male name in my mind. It might even be based on the Latin word for soldier. It's not one I've seen used for a girl anywhere else, yet.

ape4

Good luck to the Perl function Text::GenderFromName() Maybe it needs the birthday

myself248

But Jean (English name, like Jeannie) and Jean (French form of John) are entirely different names, with different pronunciations, that happen to share the same spelling.

jasonlotito

Sort of reminds me of the color swap of Pink and Blue for Men and Women.

ecshafer

There are a few names I think are being confused. Jan, short for Janice is a female name, but Jan in Central / Eastern Europe as a form of John is masculine. Jean the female name and Jean the french male name are different.

Danox

Most of the names that flip over seem to be names associated with the gentry class, many of the names seem to be neutral, soft very inoffensive names.

axus

Most surprising was "Mario" becoming shared. "Maria/Mario" seemed inherently gendered, based on the last letter.

bhouston

Green to orange? Why not blue to pink? I know it is stereotypical, but it is the natural colouring.

childev

Interesting data. Nightmare color scale for the colorblind.

ranger_danger

What about Aaron -> Erin ?

petemc_

There was a guy at my school named Hilary who got awful abuse for it. Always wondered why parents would do such a thing to a child.

rolandog

I was very much shocked to see a feminine version of my name used IIRC on Dead Or Alive 4 (DOA4), not knowing the backstory: I think it was a character called Leon was promising to avenge his dead girlfriend, Rolande. I've wondered if the women that have carried the name have liked it? In my mind, it's always sounded very blunt so as to be feminine, but I recognize I'm heavily biased when it comes to my own name.

bilsbie

I’d be curious if men with female names get rejected out of a lot of job interviews since the employer may have thought they chose a female for DEI and then a man shows up? Or maybe it’s a good way to get your foot in the door in todays job market.

sota_pop

Most interesting thing that stands out to me is the number of names that appear to be what I would consider an abbreviation of a more traditional name. e.g. “Pat” is cited, but doesn’t specify whether that refers to Patricia or Patrick.