Male and female first names

Off-topic
1

It is not related to unicycling, but I guess we’ve got so many native speakers here in the forum, that I thought I’d open this thread anyway.

I’m interested in building a list of first names that can be used for both, boys and girls. I am just curious… :slight_smile:

Getting started:

Dana
Joe
Sandy

2

Not sure about a couple of those…
Dana sounds definitely female to me, and the female form of Joe (for Joanne, Joanna, Josephine etc) is normally without the e.

A couple more gender-ambiguous names I can think of are
Bobby (Robert or Roberta),
Andy (Andrew, Andrea),
Chris (Christopher, Christine),
Alex (Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis),
Charly (Charles, Charlotte, although often spelt -ie if female),
Stevie (Stephen, Stephanie),
Alice (mostly female except Cooper - sorry :o)
There must be loads more…

And a couple of international ones that can be confusing in English, like Jan and Jean (male in German and French respectively, female in English, but pronounced differently so perhaps not a great example).

Rob

EDIT: Found a list here, but some (most) of them are pretty weird.

3

Pat.

Remember the Saturday Night Live character, Pat?
The whole point of the skit was that you could never tell whether the character was male or female.

4

Dana Andrews was a male actor best known for The Best Years of Our Lives, a wonderful film.

Michael Learned was the mom on The Waltons.

And of course, Leslie is fine unisex name.

Carroll O’Connor was Archie Bunker.

5

One of my US based colleagues first name is Dana - and he’s definitely a man! :slight_smile:

6

in french:
Dominique ? :smiley:

  • lot of others like Claude, …
    (BTW I am always confused when sending mail to the U.S. because I often do not know wether I am writing to a “she” or a “he”)
7

Kai
Kim
Imke

8

I suppose my name could be used for either, Dane.

Then there are very standard unisex names like Alex, Jordan, Taylor

9

Perhaps Dana is an American thing…
Leslie is a good one - hadn’t thought of that (although it’s become mostly a female name now, like Lindsay (I knew a male Lindsay - he used his second name most of the time!))

Rob

10

jordan

11

Jamie

12

That’s an awesome name you’ve got. I love the name Dave (my name), but my close second choice would be Dane. Enjoy your name. I hope you really like it a lot. I know I would.

13

Shoelace.

14

Alex is the only one i can think of

15

Sam (Samantha/Samuel)
Evan
Shawn
Shaun (mostly male)
Madison
Tyler (mostly male)

16

My name, Maxime. I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced differently though.

17

Vic
Nick

18

Thanks, I do appreciate it. I have met a grand total of 2 other Dane’s, and one is on the east coast. So for the most part I stand out (Not that being a white man, with dreadlocks, playing a ukulele and riding a unicycle doesn’t make me stand out… but you get the point)

I also like that my first and last name are both 4 letters, I like it when things even out like that.

If I was going to be a female my parents were going to name me Tenaya. Which nowadays people would confuse for a black girls name.

Another unisex name is Reese

19

There are so many in French, except that for girls we usually add an “e” at the end.

André(e)
Camille
Carol(e)
Claude
Daniel(le)
Dominic/Dominique/Dominick
Emmanuel(le)
Frédéric/Frédérique/Frédérick
Gabriel(le)
Joël(le)
Marcel(le)
Michael(le)/Mikael(le)
Noël(le)
Pascal(e)
Paul(e)
Raphael(le)
René(e)
Samuel(le)

And it goes on and on…

20

My actual name, Charles, doesn’t work, but the softer version, Charlie, is used by both genders, and I’ve heard of girls who were called Chuck, but that’s a bit unusual.

I’m just bringing it up 'cuz it’s a pretty common name and no one else has mentioned it yet.

Besides Rob, of course

IT’S USUALLY SPELLED -IE FOR BOTH GENDERS
…and -ey is common, too…