
The Most Gender-Switched Names in the U.S. - well_i_never
https://flowingdata.com/2019/08/28/gender-switched-names/
======
crazygringo
First, this is a great and original (AFAIK) post. Kudos to the author!

Second, I actually find the most interesting fact to be completely unmentioned
by the author: that in the first chart (greatest absolute changes), of the 30
biggest swaps, only _two_ were female->male, while the other _28_ (over 90%!)
were male->female.

It's a remarkable fact -- makes me think of how it's historically been much
more acceptable for women to adopt men's styles of clothing, but much less
accepted for men to adopt's women's styles of clothing. And with names being
equally "fashionable", this fits the same trend.

This also explains what I'd observed but never articulated about late 19th-
and early 20th-century fiction: how come so many men have what are to me
"women's names"?

Utterly fascinating.

~~~
mffnbs
> It's a remarkable fact -- makes me think of how it's historically been much
> more acceptable for women to adopt men's styles of clothing, but much less
> accepted for men to adopt's women's styles of clothing.

This is still the case today. I feel like the two are entirely unrelated,
actually. If anything, we’ve seen the opposite phenomenon happen in every
market. Buffalo Wild Wings commercials that cater to masculinity, Dr Pepper
marketing towards men who typically don’t drink diet soda, hair salons that
play sports, scents that smell like trees, etc.

~~~
elliekelly
How interesting because from my perspective (a woman) I feel like I'm seeing
significantly _fewer_ products that are marketed to/cater to traditional
notions of femininity and instead there seems to be a trend towards
inclusivity.

Tom Ford, Bvlgari, Calvin Klein, and Chanel all have uni-sex fragrances now.
Chanel's is called "Boy" and CK's is very inclusively named "all". And there's
a _huge_ trend in high-end cosmetics that makeup has no gender. CoverGirl even
has a "CoverBoy" spokesmodel now.

And of course, any company that dares to "pink it and shrink it" will feel the
wrath of Ellen and r/pointlesslygendered.

~~~
mlang23
The feminist movement managed to make femininity almost a swear word.
Fascinating and very sad. As a male, I was always turned off by unisex
products. I wonder how much profit these big companies make with this new
marketing strategy. Is it really profitable, or are they just changing their
products to avoid public shitstorms, hoping that the shitstorm avoided would
have been even worse?

~~~
maldeh
Your musings here are legitimate, so long as you recognize your feelings as a
single datapoint and don't mistake them for a general trend, or extrapolate
them to the wider population.

As a counterpoint, I don't know of any friends or close acquaintances who
would consider feminism or femininity a dirty word. To me, it's a fairly
straightforward proposition:

Q: Are you pro- women having equal rights to men w.r.t. social structures,
family responsibilities, economic opportunities, etc.?

A: Yes?

Q: And are you willing to take a second look at your social and professional
conduct to make sure it doesn't put your female peers in difficult, awkward or
uncomfortable positions?

A: Sure, why wouldn't I.

Hooray! you might be a feminist, it's not that hard.

Also, personally don't see what's wrong with unisex products, and I think it
may be possible companies might possibly occasionally find the odd not-shitty
cause they can back because their employees collectively believe in the
positive message and that also aligns well with their goals, and not solely
because of a small group of cynical PR managers running focus groups.

~~~
skocznymroczny
That's a naive look at feminism. Unfortunately nowadays many other ideologies
jump on the feminism bandwagon. It's rare to see someone who is feminist
without being also anti-law enforcement, anti-white men, anti-capitalist.

~~~
pavlov
The post to which you replied seems to address your concerns:

“Your musings here are legitimate, so long as you recognize your feelings as a
single datapoint and don't mistake them for a general trend, or extrapolate
them to the wider population.”

------
DonHopkins
"My name is Sue! How do you do? Now you're gonna die!"

I wonder if there was any fluctuation in "Sue" after Johnny Cash's recording
of Shel Silverstein "A Boy Named Sue" spent three weeks at #2 on the Billboard
Hot 100 chart in 1969 (second only to the Stone's "Honky Tonk Woman"). He even
performed it in the East Room of the White House by request of Richard Nixon
on April 17, 1970!

Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue (from Man in Black: Live in Denmark):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ3tFPTUhAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ3tFPTUhAE)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Sue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Sue)

[https://www.songfacts.com/facts/johnny-cash/a-boy-named-
sue](https://www.songfacts.com/facts/johnny-cash/a-boy-named-sue)

>Bailey from Moses Lake, Wa: Did you guys know that this song has some
historical significance. There was a court case in 1925 called the Scopes
Monkey Trial (having to do with the teaching of evelution in public schools).
The original prosecutors in the case were two brothers named Herbert E. Hicks
and Sue K. Hicks. They were both friends of Scope. Anyway, Sue got his name
because it was his mother's name and she died giving birth to him. The rumor
has it that Johnny Cash or Shel Silverstein or whoever wrote the song thought
that the fact that there was a boy named Sue was funny, and then wrote a song
about it. So the boy that was named Sue actually had some significance. Yup
and that's my bit to put in.

>-Thank you AP U.S. History!! Bailey Wa.

~~~
TomK32
There's a german cover version: Ein Mädchen namens Gerd (A girl called Gerd).

in 1971 Little Murders (based on the 1966 play) was released (includes a great
speech by Donald Southerland) in which the father is named Carol Newquist and
constantly says it's a man's name.

~~~
vintermann
Maybe also inspired by a real example?

Gerd is a women's name in Norway, and I would think in other Nordic countries,
since it's after a giant-goddess with the same name (the wife of Frey). So
there would have been a lot of girls named Gerd around at the time.

Of famous people, I can only remember the actor Dana Ashbrook, who played
Bobby Briggs in Twin Peaks.

------
TheAsprngHacker
The fact that the name "Yuri" is on this list is interesting because "Yuri" is
both a masculine Slavic name and a feminine Japanese name. The rapid switch
could be due to the growth or decline of one of these names, where the two
usages of Yuri are distinct (from different languages), as opposed to one name
whose associated gender changed.

~~~
polymeris
Similar for Angel, which probably includes Ángel. I would consider them the
same name. Even with the shared meaning, the pronunciation is different
enough.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I find the Krishna name interesting. Krishna is a male Hindu deity. However,
it seems a lot of people were naming their girls Krishna. Now, it is a boy's
name again.

My speculation for the cause of this is that Hare Krishna became popular among
certain US groups in the 1970's and a lot of them named their daughters
Krishna. Then, in more recent times, there has been a lot more immigration
from India into the US, and these families name their boys Krishna.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Perhaps in the 70s people also stuck to the general trend of female names
ending with a vowel while make names typically ended with a consonant.
Immigration from cultures such as India where this isn't the trend might
indeed be responsible for it waning.

~~~
foogoloo
In latin countries male names end in o, and girls names end in a.

~~~
skissane
Not universally true. Consider a male name like Luca

~~~
bonoboTP
Or Andrea.

~~~
tomcooks
Same as Lucas

------
cossray
Kenyatta: Interesting name whose origin (by Wikipedia) is skewed. It mentions
individuals born in 21st century and completely ignores the 1st person to
literally hold that name: Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, born in
early 1890's. It wasn't a traditional African name, but he bestowed it upon
himself in his early 20's. Among the Maasai community, it referred to a
traditional belt and Jomo, whilst living amongst the Maasai always had such a
belt. The name fascinated him and he adopted it, altering the spelling to
include 'Kenya' since he'd political ambitions

------
ggggtez
Somehow the results seem dissatisfying.

This really feels like it should be measuring the area under the curve, at the
very least. Measuring "peak to peak" seems silly.

~~~
karmakaze
I like the graphic presentation but think it would have been better to just
show the number of male and female usages of each name over time, so we'd have
a double curve with two colors. Showing only the difference you can't see if a
name got more or less popular for both genders equally.

------
caseysoftware
As a Casey (last name), I've been intrigued by the transitions over time. It
would be interesting to map this to major events.

For example, the #2 name "Jackie" switched from a heavily boys name to a
heavily girls name about 1/3 of the way through the data set which would be
around 1960. Also in 1960, JFK was elected and his wife was "Jackie" Kennedy.
She became First Lady and a fashion icon immediately.

~~~
mmanfrin
Hi (distant) cousin. My paternal Grandma's maiden name was Casey, she named
her son Casey, and I have the middle name of Casey. In 3 generations it had a
spot in all 3 names and both genders.

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gumby
It predates the US, but the name switch that has astonished me the most is
"Anne" which was unambiguously masculine and is now so unambiguously feminine
that it looks strange to see it used for a male in a historical context.

~~~
pacala
Different language families. It is/was feminine in the Latin world, and
masculine, related to germanic Arne, in some pockets of Western Europe
[Frisia, Scotland, France].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne)

~~~
Gunax
I was thinking the same thing wrt to Jean (french) vs English Jean. Or Ariel
(Hebrew).

------
sampleinajar
I wonder if you ignored spelling what the results would be? ex: kodi, codi,
cody, etc. all grouped together.

~~~
ikeyany
Not sure how helpful that data would be, considering you'd get groupings like
Aaron/Erin, which are very gender-aligned names.

~~~
zwayhowder
I know more males called Erin than females. It's a common Irish first name
that has nothing to do with the name Aaron, it literally means Ireland.

~~~
ikeyany
The article is about the United States.

------
hillz
> This [plot # 2] view wasn’t very useful

I disagree. It shows that far more gender-neutral or boy names become
significantly more popular as girl names, compared to the other way around.
That's pretty interesting.

This conforms to the idea that a boy with a girl's name (or other girlish
attribute) is bad, whereas a girl with a boy's name (or other boyish
attribute) is not as bad, or is even good.

~~~
toxik
This happens to many things. Once something becomes female dominated, men
steer clear. Clothing and fashion is another example. Heck even some sports
are like that!

~~~
elliekelly
Like programming in the 40s & 50s?

------
lalaithion
I don't know whether it's a problem with my browser or the website, but the
font rendering is really bad for this site.

~~~
paulddraper
Ubuntu Linux, I see the same on Chrome and Firefox.

The heights are wonky. Specifically for d, r, and u, and w.

Seems to work fine on other platforms.

~~~
jfk13
The site is using a webfont "protection" technique that was mentioned in a
comment here a couple months ago, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20708371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20708371).
It's a terrible idea.

~~~
robin_reala
Huh. I helped implement something similar on the site I work on, but for
entirely user focused needs, without realising that it would be potentially
problematic in certain renderers. Will have to check today, thanks for the
heads up.

------
lotophage
I've never heard of, let alone met people with, many of these names. Kenyatta,
Jael, Gentry, Aven, Daylin.

~~~
cossray
Just for your information : Kenya’s 1st and current (4th) presidents are named
Kenyatta. But they're the source of that name, anyway.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
That's a last name though, not a first name.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomo_Kenyatta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomo_Kenyatta)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhuru_Kenyatta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhuru_Kenyatta)

~~~
cossray
If you are the first man to use a name, it matters less where you decide to
put it, first or last.

------
mr_tristan
What's weird is that we don't get any sense of popularity, and a lot of the
names here are not very popular spellings.

I suspect popularity would yield pretty different insights, especially if you
could see more "sounds like" patterns.

For example, my name: Tristan, isn't on the list, but Tristyn is. Tristan is
_much_ more common.

I found this site that also provides some insight that I think is the same SSA
data, that's relatively easy to play with:
[http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Tristan-name-
popularity.html](http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Tristan-name-popularity.html)

Ratios of boys:girls in 2018:

\- Tristan 84:1 3833 total \- Tristyn 2:1 99 total

Similarly:

\- Austyn: 342 total, 1:3 b:g ratio \- Austin: 4778 total, 36:1 ratio

It's still interesting, and fun to dive into the different ways you can look
at it. It's like, the more "uncommon" the mispelling, the more people are
willing to switch gender, perhaps?

~~~
andrewem
I think that in your examples "Austyn" and "Tristyn", the POINT of the "y"
replacing "i" is to signal that the name is feminine. Namely, you're having a
girl but want to name her Austin, but not have her be assumed to be male.
Therefore, roughly 40% of the time you choose Austyn with a "y" (if my
calculations from your ratio are right; 85 girls Austyn, 129 girls Austin).

~~~
mr_tristan
Could be, but I don't think it holds that consistently in the U.S., which is
where this data is from. I'd still guess the less common the spelling, the
more likely it's gender neutral, regardless of "gender flags":

More popular, strongly feminine: [http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Sydney-name-
popularity.html](http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Sydney-name-popularity.html)

Less popular, and used to be very popular male name, now mostly female:
[http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Sidney-name-
popularity.html](http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Sidney-name-popularity.html)

------
Mountain_Skies
The prom king and queen at my high school had the first names Tracey and Tracy
respectively. Paris is an interesting case as it is featured in Romeo and
Juliet as a male name but seems to be mostly a female name now, at least in
its Parris variant.

~~~
tom_mellior
Long before Shalespeare, Paris is also a male in ancient Greek mythology. (No
relation to the name of the city of Paris BTW.)

~~~
twic
Meanwhile, to the Greeks, Troy was a city, but to us, a Chad.

~~~
mcv
I noticed that a lot of these unisex and gender-switching names are
geographical in some way. Sydney, Chelsea, Austyn, Brighton, Raleigh, Milan.
Also Native American tribes, like Lakota and Cree.

------
bmm6o
I was just thinking about this the other night... my waitress's name was
Leslie and I remember hearing that it had been predominantly a male name.
Maybe that's not accurate, I didn't see it in the list. Regardless, it's
interesting (but not surprising, really) to me that shifting masculine to
feminine is way more common than vice versa. I wonder how universal that is
across cultures.

~~~
DonaldFisk
It might depend on the spelling. In the UK, Leslie is a boy's name and Lesley
is a girl's name, same pronunciation.

------
Gunax
I actually think the first chart is most telling. Since they are ordered by
popularity, the names which had a visible male presence (Kelly, Kim, Riley,
Avery) are what I would call 'switched'. Most people would have identified
those as masculine at one point. Many of the others are too obscure to most
Americans, so they would not have a preconceived gender attachment.

------
LyndsySimon
As a man named “Lyndsy”, this is interesting :)

I know much of the story of my name. I’m named after my great-grandfather,
with first and middle names reversed. His middle name was “Lindsey”, after his
grandmother’s maiden name. (... and back and back and back ...)

I named my eldest daughter Lynzy, to continue the tradition. I’ve apologized
for her having to go through life with a “boy’s name” :)

~~~
JshWright
> I named my eldest daughter Lynzy, to continue the tradition.

And that's why I always ask patients how to spell their name, no matter how
common it sounds...

~~~
LyndsySimon
Yep. I wouldn’t have done that, but my own name varies from the historical
spelling as well.

~~~
madcaptenor
My wife is a Linsey; she jokes that her parents "couldn't afford the D".

------
deeg
So what caused that very short spike in "Jaime" as a girls name? Looks like it
might have occurred right around 1960.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sommers_(The_Bionic_Wo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sommers_\(The_Bionic_Woman\))

And this data suggests the spike is around the date of that show:
[https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-
jaime-8765.htm](https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-jaime-8765.htm)

~~~
empath75
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Lee_Curtis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Lee_Curtis)
also

------
ekianjo
Something about US first names is always puzzling to me because there is a
much larger space of names than what there is in Europe for example. Not even
talking about exotic ones only. Names like "Justice" are pretty much unheard
of in Europe.

~~~
mcv
What surprises me about American first names is how many sound like surnames
to me: Harrison and Taylor are the two most famous examples, but I'm sure
there are more.

~~~
magduf
That's because many of them are surnames. Parts of the US (namely the South)
had/have a tradition of naming boys with their mothers' maiden names.

------
whack
At the risk of turning an innocent topic into a political discussion, I wonder
how much of this trend can be explained by societal privilege. Ie, parents
(consciously or subconsciously) want their daughters to benefit from appearing
male (at least on paper) and so give them ambiguous or masculine names. And of
course, the same parents would do the exact opposite for their sons, by not
selecting any name that might be ambiguous in any way.

~~~
Zarath
I disagree, I just think it's far easier for femininity to coop masculine
concepts than the reverse. Just in my personal view, it can be seen as "cute"
for a girl to have a masculine name which sort of juxtaposes their femininity
against a previously masculine name.

Also in my experience, there is a lot more at stake for a young boy with a
"girl's" name than for a young girl with a "boy's" name. Feel free to
contradict me if you have the opposite experience. But I feel that boys would
be teased much harder, and their masculinity would be called into question
throughout their life simply based on their name.

~~~
kaitai
I feel like you're agreeing with the previous poster: "masculinity would be
called into question throughout their life", and "far easier for femininity to
coop[t] masculine concepts than the reverse." That's exactly what the previous
poster said.

(Check out the story of Steve Shirley for a computer-world related example.)

~~~
trophycase
are we looking at the same post?

GP: girls can benefit from some aspects of male privilege (the parts where
only a name is given) by taking a male name

parent: masculinity is more rigid in its ostracizing of feminine ideas

~~~
arrrg
Those are facets of the same thing, one is just more narrow than the other.
They certainly don’t contradict each other.

------
perlgeek
I love how the article goes through a thought process while analyzing the
data, and not just showing the final iteration (as many research papers tend
to do).

------
rhn_mk1
The Anglosphere is weird if you come from a culture with strongly established
gendered name standards.

