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Help[Opinions] Re: Is there any correlation between the boy name on girl and gender bias?
in reply to a message by Francisinfp5w4
I think the stereotype is things like this:
"I had a girl but I wanted a boy, so I'll just name the baby a boy name anyway"
"I don't want my kid to have a girly name because anything girly is uncool, so I'll give her a boy name instead"
etc.
But I don't think that's actually why people use traditionally male names on girls. They just like the sound and they think it would sound good as a unisex name. Occasionally it's for a family reason like "I'm only having one baby and I want to name if after my grandfather regardless of gender", or "I'm naming this baby after a family surname regardless of gender", but most people wouldn't use a name unless they think it sounds good.
If it was just a matter of not wanting a girly name, there are plenty of traditionally female names that aren't "girly" in style that they could use (and disliking "girly" style things doesn't mean you don't respect women either! There is a trend of people hating on anything popular with girls for misogynistic reasons, so people are extra vigilant for signs of that, but just because someone doesn't like something that's considered girly doesn't mean the reason they dislike it is BECAUSE it's girly. You can tell the difference because the former people look down on anyone who likes the girly things and the latter people respect that everyone has their own tastes.)
Established unisex names usually get a pass from comments like you're talking about, but a lot of them used to be male names and turned unisex after being used on girls so often that it couldn't be ignored; some people might still consider those names as "well it's supposed to be a boys name even if it's used as unisex". Which is basically just being in denial about how the usage has shifted, even after everyone else has accepted it as a unisex name. (I'm not exempt from this either -- I still feel that way about Riley, but I've also realized I'm being silly about it.) I'd like it if more names went from female to unisex, but it's a lot more common for names to go from male to unisex. That is probably because of sexism but not on the part of any individual naming their baby that way. It just permeates the culture and changes how people perceive names and how they'd expect a name's gender connotations to affect their baby growing up.
Like, there is a societal reason why people more often hear boys names as "neutral" and girls names as "marked", but the people naming babies aren't thinking about it in those terms. They've just been influenced to see certain kinds of masculine-coded names as default/neutral and therefore they sound suitable for unisex names. And even then it's usually just certain kinds of names. People will name their daughters Ayden, Jordan, Harley, and Micah but not Marcus, Robert, Frederick, and Philip. It's not just any masculine name, it's the ones that fit into pre-existing ideas of what it's possible for a girls name to sound like. Girls can have relatively short boy names with endings like "-en", "a(h)", and "-ley" because we're already used to those patterns as unisex, but not endings like "-us", "-rick", and "-bert" because those would sound ridiculous on a girl to most people. They're not automatically seen as neutral or unmarked just because they're traditionally boys names. There's something about the boys names that get picked for girls that makes them already sound viable as unisex names in that culture.
"I had a girl but I wanted a boy, so I'll just name the baby a boy name anyway"
"I don't want my kid to have a girly name because anything girly is uncool, so I'll give her a boy name instead"
etc.
But I don't think that's actually why people use traditionally male names on girls. They just like the sound and they think it would sound good as a unisex name. Occasionally it's for a family reason like "I'm only having one baby and I want to name if after my grandfather regardless of gender", or "I'm naming this baby after a family surname regardless of gender", but most people wouldn't use a name unless they think it sounds good.
If it was just a matter of not wanting a girly name, there are plenty of traditionally female names that aren't "girly" in style that they could use (and disliking "girly" style things doesn't mean you don't respect women either! There is a trend of people hating on anything popular with girls for misogynistic reasons, so people are extra vigilant for signs of that, but just because someone doesn't like something that's considered girly doesn't mean the reason they dislike it is BECAUSE it's girly. You can tell the difference because the former people look down on anyone who likes the girly things and the latter people respect that everyone has their own tastes.)
Established unisex names usually get a pass from comments like you're talking about, but a lot of them used to be male names and turned unisex after being used on girls so often that it couldn't be ignored; some people might still consider those names as "well it's supposed to be a boys name even if it's used as unisex". Which is basically just being in denial about how the usage has shifted, even after everyone else has accepted it as a unisex name. (I'm not exempt from this either -- I still feel that way about Riley, but I've also realized I'm being silly about it.) I'd like it if more names went from female to unisex, but it's a lot more common for names to go from male to unisex. That is probably because of sexism but not on the part of any individual naming their baby that way. It just permeates the culture and changes how people perceive names and how they'd expect a name's gender connotations to affect their baby growing up.
Like, there is a societal reason why people more often hear boys names as "neutral" and girls names as "marked", but the people naming babies aren't thinking about it in those terms. They've just been influenced to see certain kinds of masculine-coded names as default/neutral and therefore they sound suitable for unisex names. And even then it's usually just certain kinds of names. People will name their daughters Ayden, Jordan, Harley, and Micah but not Marcus, Robert, Frederick, and Philip. It's not just any masculine name, it's the ones that fit into pre-existing ideas of what it's possible for a girls name to sound like. Girls can have relatively short boy names with endings like "-en", "a(h)", and "-ley" because we're already used to those patterns as unisex, but not endings like "-us", "-rick", and "-bert" because those would sound ridiculous on a girl to most people. They're not automatically seen as neutral or unmarked just because they're traditionally boys names. There's something about the boys names that get picked for girls that makes them already sound viable as unisex names in that culture.
This message was edited 2/29/2024, 9:17 PM
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Replies
Thank you.
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