“Researchers have studied men with cross-gender names like Leslie,” Dr.
Evans explained. “They haven’t found anything negative – no
psychological or social problems – or any correlations with either
masculinity or effeminacy. But they have found one major positive
factor: a better sense of self-control. It’s not that you fight more,
but that you learn how to let stuff roll off your back.”
Here is much more, interesting throughout. I liked this part:
“In the past, there was more of a sense of humor, probably because
fathers had more say in the names.” He said the waning influence of
fathers might explain why there are no longer so many names like Nice
Deal, Butcher Baker, Lotta Beers and Good Bye, although some dads still
try.
As I’ve told you before, my dad had wanted to name me Tyrone. It could have been worse:
…why would any parent christen an infant Ogre? Mr. Sherrod found several
of them, along with children named Ghoul, Gorgon, Medusa, Hades,
Lucifer and every deadly sin except Gluttony (his favorite was Wrath
Gordon).
One of my favorite cross-gender stories from my youth is getting invited to the Miss Teen Tennessee pagaent. Unfortunately, it was out of town and my parents were against letting me crash it. Wasn’t planning on going in drag – just a nice suit.
My Dad was going to name me “Daphne” if I was born female, happily I was born male and my Mom selected the highly unusual moniker of “John” instead. No trans-gender naming issues here, just an empathy with Tyler and his close brush with “Tyrone”.
Does wanting to name a future daughter “Paris Francis” make me a bad person?
JKF: No worse than me wanting to get an Irish setter, name it Rouge, and move into a Cambodian neighborhood. (“Come here, Rouge!”)
I think JFKs last name is Francis.
1) If you name your daughter Allison Catherine she will be known to her friends as Ally Cat.
2) Check out the frequency of various given names in the Baby Name Wizard:
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html
“2) Check out the frequency of various given names in the Baby Name Wizard:
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html”
Haha. According to that website, use of my first name peaked at around 650 per million births, in 1940.
I guess that explains why nobody has ever pronounced it correctly on the first try.
Incidentally, the name Leslie was 85% to 95% male up until the late 1930′s. In 2006, only 5% of babies named Leslie were male.
I really like the name of the Florida Atlantic football player that Howard Schnellenberger recruited this year. He is a linebacker–
Yourhighness Morgan. He is mentioned here:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/yourhighness-morgan/
There was a theory about names like Stone,Rock, Nick, etc. being
good names for future football players
Not really related, but I understand that the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays have a prospect named Evan Longoria. Bet THAT’s not going to be made fun of.
I don’t have a source on this, but I have seen it claimed that there is a trend
for names that were purely masculine to drift over into being feminine. Once women
start to get the name, fewer and fewer men start to be given it. The trend does not
reverse. Leslie is a good example. Vivian is another. I know, Leslie Nielson is
around and so is the economist Vivian Walsh, but they are both old guys. Anybody
know a young Leslie or Vivian who is male?
And, for that matter, can anyone name a name that was a female name that moved over
to being a male name? I cannot think of any.
BTW, my great grandfather wanted a son for his first child. When my maternal grandmother
was born, he simply feminized a male name, neologizing “Jermai” out of “Jeremiah” (he was
a Primitive Baptist preacher who was also a school superintendent, living to be 96).
Barkley,
Also Meredith. The 1800′s British Censusi also have a good number of male “Mary”s, presumably from Meriadoc, like the hobbit.
This is particular to English actually, since in other languages you can just mess with the ending. Like Eva Peron and Evo Morales.
Then you have the ridiculous female name of MacKenzie, which has both the literal meaning of “son of Kenzie” and was given to newborns with at least 54 (or was it 45?) different spellings in 2006.
A list of the 45:
Mackenzie, Mckenzie, Mackenzi, Mackenzee, Mackinzie, Mackensie, Mackenize, Mackinzy, Mackinsey, Mackenzy, Mackenzey, Machenzie, Mackynzi, Mackinze, Mackenziee, Mackanzie, Macinzee, Machkenzie, Macenzie, Mckinzie, Mckenzee, Mckenzi, Mckynzie, Mckinzee, Mckenzye, Mckenzy, Mckenzey, Mckenze, Mckenize, Makenzie, Makenzi, Makenzy, Makensie, Makynzie, Makynze, Makenize, Makynzye, Makynzi, Makinzy, Makinzie, Makinzi, Makenzee, Makinze, Makinsy, Mykenzie
Dave,
This one is not a big deal, one of those cases where the English names have clear
male and female versions, like Francis and Frances. In this case, “Marion” is male
and “Marian” is female, although Marion seems to be disappearing because it seems to
female, just as Francis is becoming less popular also. Too female. Name ‘em Frank.
Hey, everybody that tough guy “Frank Sinatra,” not the “Francis” that was his real name.
“But I wonder about the increased transaction costs accumulated over a lifetime of unnecessarily expending resources in spelling-out strange names, having stereotypical discussions about what they mean and how you got them.”
The spelling-out is a hazard of common names too. Both my first name and my last name are common, and each has two common spellings. Every time I have to verbally give my name for something — literally, every time — I have to specify “no H” and “with an E.”
Over the years, I’m sure it’s added up.
My grandmother was named “George” (not “Georgia”, not “Georgiana”) because her father was dead set on the name before AND after she was born. She was called “Lucy”. I knew a girl in high school whose first name was “Smith” and went by her middle name. But I also knew a girl who switched out between her middle and first name though both were regular girl names. So I really do think your name is what you make of it. Then again, in the same branch of the family I’ve got a Confederate soldier named George Washington Usher, and he married a woman whose first and middle name were Susan America. So patriotic, so rebellious!
I’m curious about the idea that fathers used to have more power over naming than they do today. I’m not sure, but the crazier names I’ve known have been kids named by their mother. Dads tend to want legacy kids in my experience, though if I’d been a boy, I would not have been a IV, my dad insists. I know I’ll be having a lot of the say so over kids name with my husband, if only because I mispronounce HIS name and just call him Frank, so I don’t know what I’d do mispronouncing my own kids’s names if we gave them French ones.
When working for the State of Florida some years ago, I had the opportunity to scroll through the birth certificate database at some length. There was a well known case of an infant given the name ‘Princess Fergie US of America’. The child’s mother was not in a very good mental state, and as it turned out, the child was surrendered for adoption, and now no doubt has a very different (and very secret) name.
Our next door neighbor named their son “Charles Brown” and swears that it had nothing to do with Peanuts.
In addition, a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald talked about people registering all manner of names from the Harry Potter books – Malfoy, Hagrid, Severus etc. Gotta love us Aussies.
I recently heard (on SportsCenter of course), that a couple in FL had agreed to name their future son after Brett Favre. However, when they ended up having twin boys, they stuck to the plan and named one of them Brett and the other Favre!
I was given the dual gender name of Lynn which really is dominated by females. I can remember being hazed through out elementary and high school which on occasion resulted in some sort of physical punishment. Even as a middle aged adult I am still am subjected to minor irritations due to the presumption of gender. Experiences that come to mind such as job interviewers expecting a woman, all kinds of mail propaganda directed towards a women and most recently in the 9/11 era I am frequently asked to show id when my boarding pass is checked. After going through all this I consider my name a badge of honor an as Dr. Evan’s mentioned I made sure that my child would not have to have the same experience.
The huge majority of names which have switched their predominant gender associations have moved from male to female.
The one main exception is Marion. But that’s because it has basically disappeared as a female name for a couple of centuries before it became a male one. That happenned because of Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War general from South Carolina. American parents in the late 18th and early 19th centuries named sons Marion in his honor. Then Marion came back in as a girls’ name during Victorian times as part of the Victorian love of medieval legends. Marion was the original female spelling. The idea that Marion was the “male” spelling and Marian the “proper” female spelling only developed when Marion was revived for girls by the Victorians.
It looks like we may be getting to a point where having a large number of girls given a name may not automatically stop parents from giving it to sons. Jordan managed to be one of the top 50 names for both boys and girls in the USA during the 1990s, but the girls never took the name over from the boys in spite of that. So in about a decade we will have lots of heterosexual weddings where Jordan marries Jordan.
As for the male Marys in the 19th century British census: if census takers in England back then were anywhere near as careless as American census takers were, simply making errors in writing down the sex is a better explanation than assuming there were a lot of men named Meriadoc. If you take the Social Security site at face value, it will tell you that Mary was among the top 1000 names for boys in the USA between 1880 and 1975. That’s highly likely to reflect errors in typing in the “gender codes” into the original computerized data.
A friend saw this and thought I needed to comment, for I am – not a census error – but a real live and kicking male named Mary. Now, I grant it may have been a mistake by my father who was in the military when I was born and left it to my mom to name me (after my grandmother with whom she was close.) But while I’ve often been teased about it, gotten numerous advertisements for tampons and so forth, it is distinctive and probably overall has been a help in my business: People remember me.
I don’t think I would have chosen my name had I the opportunity but it hasn’t been the worse thing in the world. I knew a boy who had a very male name (think Peter) whose mother refused to cut his hair or let him wear boys clothes until he started school and then made him dress up on weekends for years after that. Frankly, I’d rather be Mary than have been Peter.
So, it’s all relative.
My name is Vivian and I’m a 34 yr old male. My grandfather was Vivian too, and so was my mom’s one teacher.
I was named after my mother’s much-loved Aunt Jacquelynn. No doubt, it’s an unusual name for a boy. Fortunately, I’ve always thought, it’s an easy one for a male nickname. So, I’ve always been known to friends as Jack. But at family gatherings, I’m always Jacquelynn, everyone in the family has always called me that. No middle name either.
I’m divorced and on my second wife, but my first one ALWAYS called me by my full name. She just liked it, I guess.
Not one I’d give to my son, but it hasn’t been that much of a problem.
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