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Where Have All the Boys' Names Gone?
Filed under: Baby Names
Where are all the boys' names? Now that unisex/male names are becoming a trend for baby girls, it's hard to find a masculine name for boys! And even though girls can be Ryan and Brett and Cameron, boys can't be Ashley -- they'd be laughed at. Any advice?
-Masculine-Name-Searching Mom
There's no doubt about it: if naming is a turf war, the boys are losing. Old favorites like Ashley and Leslie are long gone, Avery and Bailey are teetering, and even the biblical classic Micah shows signs of androgyny.
It would be nice to think that boys and girls could play nicely and share their names, but historically it seldom happens. At a certain girl-baby saturation point, names "switch sides" and become unavailable for use as boy's names. So it's natural for parents of boys to feel leery when parents of girls start to eye a treasured favorite.
Until recently, it was easy to identify names at risk of switching. All of the names I just mentioned end in an -ee or -a sound, which fit traditional feminine patterns. But today, the notion of feminine style is bursting wide open. Names like Elliot, Rowan and Campbell are are being given to girls, and a "-son" name (Addison, Emerson) is increasingly likely to mean "daughter."
Are there fashionable boys' names with girl-proof machismo? Perhaps cowboy names like Wyatt and Cooper, drenched in dust, leather and gunpowder? I wouldn't count on it. The very things that appeal to mothers of boys about these names could also appeal to mothers of girls. Sonically, Wyatt falls somewhere between Maya and Scarlett, and seems no more a stretch for being pressed into use for girls than Elliot was.
If avoiding androgyny is your #1 goal, you might have to sacrifice the "fashionable" part. The most surefire masculine names are the stodgy classics. In all my name travels, I've yet to meet a little girl named Frank, George or Edward. Barring that, you can just dive in and hope that the naming future will turn out to be different from the past. With parents of boys and girls alike flocking to the same contemporary name sounds, monikers like Jordan and Skyler are starting to find a stable niche as two-sex favorites. We might just learn to share after all.
How do you deal with boys' names? Share your experiences here. And if you have your own question to Ask the Name Lady, drop her a line!
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ReaderComments (Page 5 of 10)
5-07-2010 @ 10:23AM
Wendy said...My son is Joe. Joseph Melvin actually. I know a girl named Joey.
My grandson is named Aedan Charles. My second grandchild,if a boy, will Eion James or Eion Conway.
I have daughters named Charlie Celeste, Amelia Ardene and Elizabeth Catherine.
It doesn't matter what we name our kids. Names have familial importance or they are something that just 'speaks' to us. Either way, the names we choose for our kids just always seem to 'fit' them. Who cares if I went to college with a boy named Courtney. Who cares if I went to high school with a boy named Kelly. Those names fit them like a glove.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:29AM
Aly said...Other than the supermodel Hunter Tyler... or the 4 Hunter girls in the 2nd grade at my daughter's school.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:32AM
monked32 said...My first son was easy to name, as we had decided long before, that if we ever had a son, he would be a Jr., but my 2nd son was MUCH more difficult to name. We wanted "resume-friendly" names, for the future, but not something boring like Matt, David, John, etc (no offense to others w/ those names). We don't have a lot of family names that haven't already been used multiple times, and the middle name was already a family name (Leroy), so I wanted to find something different but not obnoxious. Also wanted to stay away from trendy names like Aiden, Jayden, Cayden, Cody, etc. The only name that felt "right" was Jalen (as in Jalen Rose, the bball player). I had never heard it used other than that, until, of course, I was stuck on it, then I heard it frequently for both girls and boys. It doesn't bother me though, bc the girls names we picked out were unisex, just spelled with more y's, e's and l's, which seem more feminine to me. My son was born 3-9-10 and I still think about other names I could have chosen, but none seem to fit, other than Jalen. At least I know there won't be 6 other people in his class with the same name!
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5-07-2010 @ 10:31AM
lolly said...i am all for getting rid of the stupid made up names that no one can pronounce. but i am sick of michael. i work with 7 michaels have a brother in law named michael and my husband has 3 michaels at his job. not to mention all the friends who have family members named michael. ugh! not a bad name not the greatest name either. and just because you put a ja or je in front of it doesn't mean it isn't a stupid name. i.e. jamichael.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:35AM
Dee said...Look.... ANYTHING is better that Quatavious, LaSHUNDA, chakita, Luquita etc....
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5-07-2010 @ 10:37AM
Norene said...How 'bout those famous cities? Paris, London, Topeka, Siena, Cheyenne, etc?
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5-07-2010 @ 10:37AM
Michele said...My son's name is Jameson and we always called him Jamie. FYI: Jamie is a very common, very old MALE name in UK/Ireland/Scotland/Wales and hasn't yet been hijacked by the female populace.
Any name with "son" as the suffix means "son of." Naming a girl Jameson, Addison, Madison ...etc .... is absoutley silly.
The traditional names seem to be making a comeback. Lots of Olivias, Janes and Sarahs out there these days.
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5-07-2010 @ 11:41AM
Michelle said...I just wanted to comment on your thoughts of Addison for a girl name being SILLY!!??!! My sister-in-law whom I dont usually agree with or even like very much, has named her second daughter Addison. Which they named after my husbands Grandmother. So they named thier daughter Addison Rose and let me tell you it is not a silly name for a girl.What would be silly to me is seeing a mother call her son "Addie" it just sounds all girl to me and thats my point. In fact I think I would rather have that name than Michelle for more than one reason- 1. I dont like being called Michael by people who cant read. 2. It is less common.
5-07-2010 @ 11:54AM
Michelle said...Oh, I almost forgot, you are wrong too about the name Jamie not being taken for the girl population. My cousins name is Jamie Lynn, and I know several other girls with that name. Now I dont know where your from, but in Seattle Washington there is no girl-boy names really, I dont really think it matters if you really like a name, USE IT ! The person with that name can change it in the future or can make THE name !!! I named my son Ethan Edwin, Edwin is husbands real first name but he chooses to use Matthew his middle name instead. So, I really dont think it matters, I loved the name Ethan becouse there are no nicknames for it, but I was wrong becouse all my in-laws have found 2 "E.E" and just "E" I dont care for either of them and either does my son but they all have a thing with nick names, so I just deal with it.
5-07-2010 @ 10:40AM
kyle said...You are kidding me right? long hair and an earing!!! wow must be gay.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:48AM
Norene said...All Irish familes have at least one Michael. Most Irish families have a Kathleen or Cathleen.
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5-07-2010 @ 1:11PM
Hatejonandkate said...I'm just glad my family, and myself included, had enough common sense to name all the boys in our family with masculine names. No idiotic "fashionable" like Skyler or Ashley. You know we're men when you see our names on a piece of paper, and i'd probably would've kicked my dads ass if he named me one of those names on that list.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:44AM
Rick said...I think people are getting more and more weird about the names they give their children. I think that the main reason for it is attention-seeking insecure parents. Why else would you give a child a name that people are going to laugh at, ridicule, etc.? If you think it benefits the child in some way, think again. My cousin had a daughter a few years ago, and named her Chrystann. I thought it was a silly name, but I held my tongue. But when she started school, the other kids made fun of it, and her teachers constantly mispronounced it. She came home crying a lot of days, so I asked her how she would like being called CJ (her middle name is a very normal Jennifer). Her face lit up, and she's gone by CJ ever since. For you parents that are thinking about naming your child Paper, or Paddington, or La-anything, think about your child. He or she is going to have to live with this name for their entire life - don't saddle them with a bonehead name.
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5-07-2010 @ 10:46AM
noel said...It would be interesting to know how many readers with he/she names did that to their children or did they give them traditional names. I finally liked my name, but my girls have girly names and my boys had definately male names. I found it extremely annoying to be mistaken for the opposite sex growing up when people saw the name without seeing me.
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5-07-2010 @ 11:03AM
likeitis said...We chose Derek and Chad, there were 3 Jordans, 2 Justins and 5 Josh's in our dsughter's preschool class at the time and was confusing enough!
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5-07-2010 @ 11:28AM
l said...Our son is named ZACHARY. I never knew a girl named Zachary, so we feel it is a handsome, masculine name..hubby and I both just fell in love with that name (AND our son!). Zachary is biblical; the name is from "Zacharias" which means "God has remembered."
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5-07-2010 @ 11:16AM
Jane said...My husband's middle name is Leslie...named after Leslie Nielsen...he isn't crazy about it (it's family tradition for all boys to have JL initials) and prefers that we do not pass it down to our boys...so we have James Lewis and Jay Lee...and maybe Jonah Levi if #4 is a boy!
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5-07-2010 @ 11:11AM
Larrie said...My husband and I named our new son Rex Nicholas. With the Latin meaning of Rex being "King", there is no mistaking it is a masculine name. But there is no reason that someone should decide against a name they love because it isn't gender specific.
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5-07-2010 @ 11:10AM
Chaz Goodman said...I believe that people should wait until their child or children are born to name them. You will be surprised how certain names seem to suddenly fit when you first see their faces. One of my daughter's name is Hannah. When her mother first mentioned this name to me, I hated it! But, for what ever reason, when she was born, I looked at her and than to my wife and said, "That is a Hannah". And I have loved her name ever since.
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5-07-2010 @ 11:15AM
Ann said...Why can't parents take the time to look up the meaning of the name they are strapping their child with for life? Cameron means crooked nose. I gave my son a name wih a strong, manly meaning yet people started naming their daughters with the name. Fierce little one. If you look up fierce in the dictionary it means violent and savage. CLEARLY not a name for girls. It has deeper meaning as well. It means fire which derived from Aui, a Celtic surname. My point being, look up the meaning before you strap your child with a crooked nose.
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