Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa
by adrian_b on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:55PM
(#50346030)
Those names were longer in their original form, so none of them ended in "-a", but in English one or more letters were dropped, resulting in the "-a" termination.
E.g. Ezra was Esdras in Greek and in Hebrew it probably ended in "-ahu", while Elisha was Eliseus in Greek and in Hebrew it ended in ayin after the "-a-".
Or the names of biblical prophets like Ezra or Elisha. Not very popular today but you can find a lot of them in 19th century records.