US boy names that became girl names and vice versa

Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by KineticLensman on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:27PM (#50343220)

(Brit here)

My first and middle names are John and Richard. A couple of times on trips to the US people have read my initials as 'Jr'. Very surprising the first time! Has never happened to me in the UK.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by alistairSH on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:15PM (#50343037)

Yeah, it's a bit weird...

On some forms in the US, it's listed as a suffix. Some agencies enforce it, others do not (SSA does not, for example). And colloquially, when"Senior" dies, the son often stops using "Junior" (though that's not a legal change).

UK, Can, and AUS are similar, but not exactly the same as the US. And NSW in AUS complicates matters by outright prohibiting roman numberals are Jnr/Snr suffixes. Mexico has more restrictions due to the mothers-last-name, fathers-last-name naming convention.

Personally, I dig the Nordic and Arabic "x, son of y, son of z, son of..." patterns.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by ascorbic on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:19PM (#50345546)

The UK doesn't really use those kind of suffix at all unless you're the king, so I'd imagine it would be quite hard with forms.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by ninalanyon on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:36PM (#50345774)

> the Nordic

Long obsolete except in Iceland.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by somenameforme on Monday November 02, 2026 @08:04PM (#50346626)

? Jameson, Smithson, Thomson, Wilson, etc, etc.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by vintermann on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @01:56AM (#50348918)

Not so long. My grandfather, born 1908 in Norway, kept the proper patronym as a middle name since he would otherwise have the same full name as his father. Everyone had to take fixed last names by 1923, but it wasn't uncommon to keep the patronym as a middle name like my grandfather did.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by alistairSH on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @09:28AM (#50352431)

Not actively used, but still see the occasional ...son on a surname.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by terribleperson on Monday November 02, 2026 @11:15PM (#50347989)

How the heck can one state of Australia prohibit certain types of names? Doesn't that cause all kinds of problems with documentation mismatches if someone moves?

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by cowlevel on Monday November 02, 2026 @11:16PM (#50347998)

It's not unusual for someone to change their name when immigrating. Have you met anyone in your presumably English-speaking country who wrote their name in Korean characters? Probably not because they convert it to the nearest allowed name.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by dpark on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @02:29AM (#50349117)

They don’t change names when they move. The names are registered in the location of birth.

But your name might get mangled in some states if it doesn’t fit, same as it might in the US if some system doesn’t properly handle, e.g., multiple middle names or special punctuation.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by alistairSH on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @09:30AM (#50352449)

Dunno, but Iceland also enforces it's son-of/daughter-of naming convention to the point some names are explicitly prohibited (or is it explicitly allowed, I forget if it's a black-list or white-list).

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by k12sosse on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:00PM (#50342802)

they become Jay-Are

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by thaumasiotes on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:08PM (#50343779)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Soprano

And it's not even part of his legal name.

> How does that work when they’re 60 with grandkids?

They get called "grandpa" like everyone else with grandchildren.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by nilamo on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:15PM (#50343862)

The Sopranos had a main cast Junior, who was also the oldest of the team. Just for some anecdata

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by Root_Denied on Monday November 02, 2026 @05:57PM (#50345249)

I have Junior in my legal name - it's the bane of my existence when it comes to legal forms because of how inconsistent various systems handle it, even for different government systems. This became especially true after 9/11 and the Patriot Act pushed these systems to update and go digital because they couldn't get their act together to coordinate for years.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by bonoboTP on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:33PM (#50345740)

Ferenc Puskás the Hungarian footballer had grown up with the nickname Öcsi, meaning little brother. Later when he got old he was referred to as Puskás Öcsi bácsi, meaning Uncle Little Brother Puskás...

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