Just a list of boy names that have become girl names. As you can see, this has been going on for some time. Each new one always sounds strange and inappropriate to me, but apparently we get used to it fast enough.
And no, they never go in the other direction. What the baby-name pages call androgynous or unisex names are merely names switching from male to female.
Leslie
Terry
Tracy
Beverly
Kelly
Shirley
Ashley
Dana
Jordan
Jamie,
Casey
Whitney
Sydney
Florence
Lindsey
Hillary
There's a strong tendency for the -y and -ly names to switch over for girl use. It is clearly more acceptable for a girl to have a boyish name than a boy to have a girlish one. There are a few possible explanations, but I lean toward the idea that masculine names often have higher status in terms of strength and solidity.
Seems to me that Vivian is used as a man's name in England--or used to be.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to get a timeline on when those began to be used as female names, and when they became predominantly female names. Some of those I recognize only as female names. Others, such as Casey, as in Mr. Stengel, I can see as being male names.
ReplyDeleteI recall reading once something dated around 1945 where there was a male named Beverly, which was the only time I had come across Beverly as being a male name.
I had a great-uncle Shirley up in Nova Scotia. Would have been born in the 1890's, I think.
ReplyDeleteFlorence was a boy name up until the mid 19th. I don't know of any earlier examples, though there may be lots. But as names didn't vary much anyway, and people took their unusual names from classical sources, I will guess there weren't many. More common were feminised forms of male names, usually by adding an -a or -ina. The -a form for feminine nouns is found worldwide, BTW, not just English.
Don't forget Lynn and Fay. Nowadays anything goes for girl's names, which makes doing these comparisons moot unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I work with 2 people named Courtney. They are of different genders.