[Severus]

Back in the day - say 50 or 100 years ago, names like
Ashley and Marion were boys' names. People started giving them to girls and today we can't imagine a man by these names.
Even Anne used to be perfectly acceptable for males!

At the present time, the same has happened with Madison, Addison, and I'm sure you can think of some more. On a BOY? You can't really do that anymore can you?

Recently I have picked up on another board that the following names have been used on girls, most of them in several cases.
I really dislike this trend. What names will be left for the boys? And the other way around - a boy with a girlish name - is not done.

OK - done with the rant...
WDYT?

Apparently, these are now girls’ names:

Miles

Gavin

Justice

Julian

Logan

Teddy

Kingston

Colin

Russell

Dalton

Reid

Fallon

Michael

Kennedy

Aiden

Jude

Keaton

Marlow

Mason

Jules (as full name)

Elliott

Bradley

Basil

Carter

Chandler

[treefalls]

There are a few there that are masculine (to me) without any near feminine alternatives:
Gavin, Russell and Bradley

A LOT of them are surnamey names, which is a huge trend now. I think people are attracted to them because they sound strong and gender neutral.
Logan, Kingston, Dalton, Reid, Kennedy, Keaton, Marlow, Mason, Elliott, Carter
I can also see women choosing these names for their daughters if they decide to honour the naming convention of giving their child the father's surname, then perhaps using their maiden name as a first name. Just a thought.

Then there's the NN as FN phenomenon. So many people just name their kid the short version:
Jude, Jules, Teddy (Theodora?)

The other huge naming trend is for (again) something neutral like an occupation, object or something symbolic.
Justice, Mason, Basil

So, for me, that leaves the following:

Colin - I'd probably just use Colleen
Michael - Michaela and Michelle are okay, so Michael's not that much of a stretch.
Aiden - I'de probably just use Ada, but can understand that a name ending in 'a' might not suit the surname, leading to the temptation to keep the name and 'close' the ending.


FTR, our daughter's middle name is Marlowe. We understood it to be a surname (originally) but we chose the "masculine" spelling (over Marlo) as I thought it looked better with her other two names. No other reason. I never thought of it as a masculine name, even after the research I did prior to using it. Our son's middle name is also a surname.

This post has been edited by MelbChick: 19/04/2012, 09:02 PM