US boy names that became girl names and vice versa

Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by nostrademons on Monday November 02, 2026 @01:41PM (#50341496)

This is part of what they mean by girl names driving the shift. You have a traditional ethnic name that may be masculine or feminine and has a baseline low level of popularity. Then you have a popular female name that rapidly gains and loses its popularity. The effect on the mix is that it's shifting from masculine to feminine, but really you should look at it as a newly-popular female name being layered on top of the traditional name. And you can often see this in the timescale, with a clear pop-culture trigger leading to the rising girl name.

Looking at just part of the data, I can see this with Arya (Stark, Game of Thrones), Paris (Hilton), Stevie (Nicks, of Fleetwood Mac), Dakota (Fanning), and Tatum (O'neal), and the masculine trend also relates to the fading of generationally-popular names like Jean (Silent/Boomer), Pat (Boomer), Joan (Silent/Boomer), Courtney (Gen-X/Xennial), etc.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by aidenn0 on Monday November 02, 2026 @10:47PM (#50347811)

Don't forget Madison[1] (Splash[2]). My guess is that the majority of names prior to 1984 are clerical errors where the surname was entered as the given name.

1: https://namedaisy.com/us/name/Madison

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_(film)

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by Timwi on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @12:12AM (#50348351)

I was actually surprised to see Trinity in the list. Not only does it remind me of The Matrix (1999), I also don't think I've ever encountered someone with that as a real name.

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