US boy names that became girl names and vice versa

Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by phillc73 on Monday November 02, 2026 @02:58PM (#50342773)

> Ends in 'a' = female: a relatively safe assumption, as far as an assumption here can be safe, with no other context. A strong majority in many places will match that.

Which places? I guess I ask because your next sentence:

> Many of the exceptions will be obviously foreign names with traditional spelling

Which makes me wonder if you meant "US places", because I can think of a few male names, which maybe categorised as "foreign" if you're in the US, that end in "a".

e.g. Csaba (pronounced "Chubba") is a reasonably common Hungarian name.

And some not so "foreign" ones, albeit mostly with Biblical roots, like Joshua and Ezra.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by cenamus on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:23PM (#50343158)

Indo european languages mostly, probably

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by adrian_b on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:46PM (#50345911)

The names with Biblical roots did not end in -a in their original form, but in most cases their termination was "-ah". The final consonant was usually dropped in English, resulting in the "-a" termination.

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Re:US boy names that became girl names and vice versa by Groxx on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @02:19AM (#50349038)

[delayed]

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