<p>atomom, I’m with you. I really, really hate the “-den/dyn” names. I was on a website recently for a hospital in rural southern Illinois and saw on the birth announcements the following names: Skylar Kensley, Khyrin Reese and (my favorite) Collins Tatelynn. There was also a Caselynn and a Bentley and almost no “regular” names.</p>
<p>When some folks we know named their baby Jane a few years ago, everyone kept asking them what her real first name was. Her real first name was Jane. :)</p>
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[That’s</a> a French ass name, ee VAUGHN!](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AbiEZFyTA]That’s”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AbiEZFyTA)</p>
<p>If I have a son, I want to name him Fluorine. If I have a daughter, I want to name her Chlorine.</p>
<p>“I had an eighth grade English teacher who was obsessed with Gone With the Wind. She had named her son Ashley ( he was about 7/8 at the time; she loved talking about him.) I feel sorry for him now; he was probably the last male Ashley in America.”</p>
<p>No… Sorry he isn’t . My Brother-in-law’s name is Ashley. He’s in his 50’s. His family calls him Lee but some people he works with call him Ashley.</p>
<p>I’m sure we all know a guy with a girl’s name :D</p>
<p>I had a friend back several moves ago who had a son, Ashley. Born in 1978. it was her Alabama grandfather’s name.
That whole group of names used to be “old southern grandpa names”…Ashley, Lindsey, Courtney, Whitney, Sidney, Brook. Heck, most of them were still “male” names in the early '70’s.
Then parents took on Lane, Riley, etc.</p>
<p>(ETA, OK…Sidney was at the edge of the group…lots of Sid’s in all parts of the country in the 50’s)</p>
<p>USNAVY is the name of the lead character from the Tony winning musical “In the Heights.” Didn’t know that anyone was actually named that. In the play, the character explains that his parents were coming here on a boat from the Dominican Republic and his mother saw that painted on the side of a ship and liked it.</p>
<p>Halogen, we have a kid named Carbon at our school.</p>
<p>Well, MichiganGeorgia, this one would be in his forties now, so he would be laster than the one you knew. :)</p>
<p>But yes, dragonmom, yours is younger.</p>
<p>The trend that is interesting is that so many formerly “male” names have become “female” or gender-neutral names.
Can anyone come up with a list of names that started as feminine and became gender-neutral or male dominant?</p>
<p>Halogen, the handle I use quite often is Astatine.</p>
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<p>I read “Heck” as one in the string of names and thought that was one I hoped didn’t catch on.</p>
<p>@megpmom I will tell her. I do not think she thinks other people are named like her. I think in Cuba no one really paid much attention to her name, but now living here she is not so trilled about it.</p>
<p>I love hearing about all these unusual names, but I have one myself, and I have spent most of my life wishing I had a more mainstream name. No one “gets” my name the first time, so I have to repeat it or spell it or explain it, and it makes me feel self-conscious and I think the other person thinks I’m being difficult (especially when I don’t agree with them that my name is really Sara or Erin or whatever they think I said). If you’re one of those people (like me) where you find it hard to meet people and make friends, having an unusual name makes it harder.</p>
<p>I hope other people with unusual names don’t mind if people mangle their names or ask them to explain them or spell them all the time. Every time I hear someone say “what an unusual name!” I feel like they’re really saying “you poor thing – what an unfortunate name”. Unusual is not the same as pretty or nice.</p>
<p>There are times when I have been genuinely happy I had this name, like when someone was trying to find me and since I’m the only person in the US with my name, it was easy. But most of the time I wish I had a different name.</p>
<p>I always try to compliment Unusual names, especially if I have to make the person spell it for my records (regardless of whether I would ever have chosen such a name for any purpose). They always seem appreciative.</p>
<p>I’m booking a trip to Hawaii so I can meet you. And spell my name :)</p>
<p>Regarding formerly female names that are now considered male, I remember a Civil War mini series several years ago where a girl’s name was Brett. I also remember a female Brett who used to do the game show circuit many years ago, but can’t remember her last name. The only Bretts I have ever known in my life have been male.</p>
<p>My first name is very common now, but when I was in school, there was only one other. Although it is not unusual, there are so many ways to spell it that no one ever gets it right. I also had an uncommon last name, lived on a hard-to-spell street, and in a town that sounded like a well-known large city, so was that’s what people “heard” when I would say it. I really got tired of spelling everything.</p>
<p>When I was in elementary school, a girl named Darnell moved onto our neighborhood and invited me to her backyard to play. There I met her brother Darren and sister Darlene. When their father, wearing his Navy uniform, stepped outside, the kids snapped to attention and called him “sir”. I was flabbergasted (this was the Northeast–I’d never heard any child call an adult called “sir” before). It came as no shock to learn that the father was named Darrell. Imagine the ego on the man!</p>
<p>It’s a good thing he wasn’t inspired by Captain Von Trapp of the Sound of Music to summon his kids with a whistle and have them march about the grounds. ;).</p>