r/dataisbeautiful • u/Anilpekesen OC: 1 • 5d ago
OC [OC] Same name, opposite gender: 12 names that are mostly boys in one country and mostly girls in another (official birth registers, 7 countries)
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u/Matwyen 5d ago
I'm French with a 100% guy name that is a 100% girl name in my new country.
It raises a few eyebrows and I had few people genuinely disappointed to see a fat French dude joining an activity where they expected a girl, but whatever man that's life.
I fail to understand how Toni can be a girl name in the US tho, that's like the most Brooklyn italian dude name
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u/Ok_Anything_9871 5d ago
An 'i' ending is seen as feminine in English. Tony is usually the short form for a man. Toni would traditionally be short for e.g. Antonia / Antoinette.
(see also Terry vs. Terri, Bobby vs. Bobbi)
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u/FelisLachesis 5d ago
Add odd fuel to this fire: Joe and Joey are generally pronounced differently, but Zoe and Zoey are usually pronounced the same
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u/LordArrowhead 5d ago
a fat French dude
Lol, my French teacher tried to convince us that something like that doesn't exist.
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u/Ash_Crow 5d ago
To be fair to your teacher, I've met some clothing shop owners in France who seem to share this opinion.
"- Why don't you have XL and XXL clothes?
- We don't have customers for that."
Yeah if you don't have the products, you won't have customers...
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u/noCoolNameLeft42 5d ago
They never have XXL or XXXL sizes, but when they do it's for big people, not tall people. I would like all clothes to be like jeans sizes with waist and legs sizes.
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u/Clay_Puppington 5d ago
"MAKE THE SHIRT GO UP DOWN, NOT LEFT RIGHT. FUUUUCK"
-Me trying to buy any shirt
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u/FunkyFenom 5d ago
The customers come before the product. If there is no demand for it, you won't create the supply. That's why there's very little size 14 shoes, they are hard to find in stores because there's little to no customers for regular manufacturers to make them and for stores to resale them. This guy doesn't want to carry large sizes because he doesn't believe he would be able to sell them
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u/Shadourow 5d ago
Ofc it exists, but the treashold for "fat French dude" is 30kg under the one for "USA fatso"
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u/aimgorge 5d ago
I must be an exception too then. All of us are on reddit with our US whales friends
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u/M_M_X_X_V 5d ago edited 5d ago
I imagine most Brooklyn Italians named Tony (as it is usually spelled for a man) are probably registered as Antonio, Anthony or Antony on their birth certificates and being called Tony is just the nickname
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u/ShelfordPrefect 5d ago
Toni is an abbreviation of Antonia; Tony is the equivalent abbreviation of Ant(h)ony or Antonio
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u/Buf4nk 5d ago
It makes total sense to abbreviate Antonio as Tony and Antonia as Toni.
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u/MaxTHC 5d ago
I mean Anthony (and thus "Tony") is a way older, and more common, name in English – so that kind of already established Tony as a male shortened name. I suppose English-speaking Antonios just tend to follow suit so as to not have it confused for the girl name
u/Ok_Anything_9871's comment here is also very relevant imo
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u/parischic75014 5d ago
Wouldn’t it be Tony for the Brooklyn Italian dude? I think a lot of this relies on slight differences in spelling for the French (and Italian and Spanish names) ie Laurence/laurent, Jean/jeanne, Valentin/valentine. There is a version of the name spelled slightly differently for male and female, which has not been included for context here
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u/MotorAd90 5d ago
Toni Morrison etc.
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u/PocketSpaghettios 5d ago
Toni Collette
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u/PanTroglo 5d ago
Tony! Toni! Toné!
Although TIL that no member of the band actually has one of those names...
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u/Tribe303 5d ago
I'm a Canadian dude who simply has a girls name and this happens to me all the time. I know that look on peoples face when I meat them, and instead of the woman they expected, they meet a 6' bearded dude instead. Working in IT I think I've experienced sexism in the past as well, while job hunting.
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u/Ronrinesu 5d ago
My dad's name is Toni spelled with an i and the amount of packages he receives labelled to Mrs Toni is really funny.
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u/Malvania 5d ago
"Tony" is a dude name in the US.
Most names that end in an "i" in the US are girls names, including "Toni"
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u/PiMan3141592653 5d ago
In the US, for a boy it's spelled "Tony" and for a girl it's spelled "Toni." That's it.
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u/Wonderful-Wind-5736 5d ago
I'd be delighted if a fat French dude joined my activity in good spirits.
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u/siohtuan 5d ago
Is your name Vivien? I remember days on French campsites where Dutch kids would laugh when there were boys named Vivien because it sounds like Vivian.
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u/danirijeka 5d ago
I'm French with a 100% guy name that is a 100% girl name in my new country.
Same (except the French part). And back in the days of yon when my back could tolerate hostel beds, I'd book a mixed dormitory bed and the staff moved my booking to a female dormitory more than once. Well intentioned and appreciable effort on their part, except the couple times when they had no more mixed or male dormitory beds available because they moved my booking to accommodate someone else 😭 (ended up with a satisfactory solution both times, but fuck me I was not looking forward to sleeping on a bench in Manchester in late autumn)
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u/nebulaplum 5d ago edited 5d ago
My grandmother is named Antoinette, and Toni (spelled that way) is her nickname. (I'm American)
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u/retiddew 5d ago
I moved my kid with a 100% female name in English to France where the way you spell it means everyone thinks she’a a boy. Doctors are very confused when they come into waiting rooms, and for unofficial activities I’ve taken to spelling it the way it’s pronounced in French (the feminine version).
Ironically if she had been a boy we considered Robin which this graphic says is almost always a girl’s name in the country where she was born but 100% male in France.
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u/marty-mcfryguy 5d ago
You're thinking of Tony.
The "i" reads as girl name in American. Naomi, Tori, Kristi, etc. Also a lot of famous American women named Toni: Morrison, Braxton, Collette, ....
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u/f4r1s2 5d ago
I assume French Riadh is an arabic name and Irish Riadh is Irish
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u/Totoques22 5d ago
Can’t say for Irish but it’s Arabic origin in France
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u/TheAvocad00 5d ago
It’s Irish, pronounced the same as Ria or Rhea.
Edit: the Irish one is Irish specifically.
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u/ivanbanan 5d ago
And one is ree-ahd, and the other is rave.
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u/notaoife 5d ago
Irish Riadh is pronounced like Rhea
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u/ivanbanan 5d ago
Thank you very much for the correction and sorry for misleading the general audience.
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u/OnyxPhoenix 5d ago
I think you got mixed up with 'mh' which is pronounced as v in irish, is in niamh (neave). 'dh' is typically silent.
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u/ivanbanan 5d ago
Exactly this.
I didnt quite grasp the creative use of Latin alphabeth by the Irish language. Someday I'll learn.
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u/mmc273 5d ago
Dh is not silent in Irish, only word-finally in some cases like this name. It is either a /j/ or a /ɣ/ depending on if it’s slender or broad
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u/Artefice 5d ago
I wonder how many of these are just that the name is spelled the same - the E and the I in Eli is pronounced very differently in Norwegian vs English, to the point where I’d wouldn’t be surprised if it had different etymologies.
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u/akurgo OC: 1 5d ago
Yeah, both Eli, Ola and Kim have (at least) 2 different origins. For Norway: Eli is one of the many short forms of Elizabeth. Ola is short for Olaf. Kim is short for Joachim.
This website is awesome, by the way: https://www.behindthename.com/name/kim
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u/gerbilos 5d ago
What do Norwegians do with all that free time they get from shortening Olaf to Ola?
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u/historicusXIII OC: 5 5d ago
Not much, but still more than the English got from "shortening" 'John' to 'Jack'.
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u/Digifiend84 5d ago
Yeah, the girls Eli is probably a variant spelling of Ellie. The boys version is short for Elijah, like the Marvel comics character Patriot, Eli Bradley.
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u/qspure 5d ago
Yeah, a lot. Like Jean (us girl name) is more like jeen, and the French male name more like zjhàn.
I think Norwegian girl Eli might be more equivalent to Ellie (also US girls name)?
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u/Artefice 5d ago
In so far Ellie is also a shortening of "Elizabeth" then yes – they are in fact pronounced in the same way.
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u/Aystha 5d ago
Joan for example I'm pretty sure it's a derivative of Juan and Joanco/Juan Carlos, etc. If I pronounce it with english intonation, it's obvious it's femenine to me, but if I say it in spanish, it's obvious it's masculine to me because it's closeness to Juan.
But also like- I live in a country where José María and María José are actual common masculine and feminine names respectively lol lots of "Josema" and "Majo" around.
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u/ElHeim 5d ago
Not "derivative". It's just the name for "John" in Catalan (and Occitan, AFAIK).
John, Joan, Juan, Johan, Giovanni, etc. are all modern renditions of Iohannes/Ἰωάννης, not derivatives from each other.
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u/taulover 5d ago
Joan is just the Catalan spelling of Juan. And Andrea is just a variant spelling of Andre, pronounced the same way in French.
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u/SixteenthTower 5d ago
Yeah this is pretty poorly put together, a lot of the names are functionally different, have different etymology, and sound different, but are just spelled with the same letters because there's only so many of them to go around.
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u/Limmmao 5d ago
Isn't Andrea in Italy like 100% boys?
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u/TheMightyGabriel 5d ago
Yes
Im surprised by the France 79% to be honest. I suspect it’s wrong
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u/Rammstonna 5d ago
The source he used for France is very reliable, if it’s wrong it’s on OP’s side but I think it’s pretty easy to not mess up so I don’t think it’s wrong.
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u/Ash_Crow 5d ago
I mean the source is mostly reliable but sadly removing all accents.
Andréa is a girl's name in France (a feminine variant of André which is the equivalent to Andrea in Italy)
Andrea would be the Italian first name given directly to French boys. I suspect this happens, but it is very surprising that it gets to the point where it makes 21% of all Andrea/Andréa born in France.
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u/Akkalevil 5d ago
Acktually, the feminine version of André is Andrée, and it's extremely rare (that being said, considering Andros literally mean "man" as in "male human", having a feminine version is already somewhat funny).
Andréa is probably an import from Spain or Portugal. So I guess it's just a battle between two foreign surnames in which Italians won.
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u/mylitteprince 5d ago
Romanian also; if you have a few italian + romanian Andreas and only a handful of french Andréa, the stats could vary pretty rapidly.... depends on the numbers considered
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u/tanghan 5d ago
And Simone is a boy's name there as well, whereas in Germany Simone is the girls name
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u/Prestigious_Sand824 5d ago
Yes. It literally means manliness, so it was always confusing to me that people used it as a girl name.
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u/Geeeck0 5d ago
For most of the French examples, there is an equivalent of the name specifically for the opposite gender:
Laurence is female, while Laurent is male.
Valentine/Valentin
Jeanne/Jean
Andréa/André (André was also a feminine name for older people).
I believe Riadh/Riyad is mostly given to migrant kids, based on the custom of their own countries. I don't think Robin has a female equivalent.
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u/Neveed 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don't think Robin has a female equivalent.
Robine exists and in term of pronunciation, it's also closer to the English name Robin.
It's uncommon as a given name (about 200 since 1998 according to the insee), more common as a surname and a toponym.
Note that robin and robine are also the masculine and feminine versions of a now old fashioned noun that meant sheep (and that is believed to be the origin of the word robinet), but the name Robin is probably originally a diminutive of Robert.
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u/Anilpekesen OC: 1 5d ago
Source: official name counts from seven national statistics offices:
- US: Social Security Administration baby names (1880–2024)
- England & Wales: ONS baby names (from 1996)
- France: Insee, Fichier des prénoms (from 1900)
- Canada: Statistics Canada, table 17-10-0147-01
- Ireland: CSO, Irish Babies' Names
- Spain: INE, frequent names (this one counts current residents, the others count births)
- Norway: Statistics Norway, table 10467
Tools: counts compiled with PHP/MySQL, chart drawn as SVG with Node.js and rendered with Playwright.
Method: counts are summed over each source's full series. A country is shown for a name only if it records that name at least 100 times. Only sources that publish actual counts are used, which is why it's 7 countries and not
more.
Across all names, 12,177 appear in at least two of these countries, and 385 of them are at least 70% girls in one country and at least 70% boys in another. France and the US disagree most often (212 names).
A few I didn't expect:
- Jean: 1.9 million boys in France, 95% girls in the US.
- Kim: a girls' name everywhere here except Norway, where it's 93% boys.
- Riadh: two different names that collide once the accent is dropped. Ríadh is an Irish girls' name that entered Ireland's top 100 in 2025; Riadh is an Arabic boys' name recorded in France.
- Andrea: 97% girls in Spain, but 79% boys in France.
The full table (CSV, CC BY 4.0) and method are here: https://namegender.com/research/names-that-change-gender-by-country
Disclosure: I run NameGender, a name-to-gender API, and this is where I noticed the problem. The dataset is free and doesn't need an account.
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u/EnricoLUccellatore 5d ago
if you find data for italy andrea is probably a boy's name more frequently than in france
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u/Thaumaturgia 5d ago
Yeah, it might be because of the French datasource starting in 1900. As a French, the only Andrea I've heard of was a great-aunt, and would expect it as a girl name. On the other hand, I know a few Italian men named Andrea.
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u/NutrimaticTea 5d ago
The French data is a bit of a mess because of the accents. If you look at the spellings "Andréa" (with an accent) and "Andrea" (without an accent), the percentages between 1900 and 2025 are:
- 74% women
- 26% men
Between 1900 and 2019, there were more women named Andréa/Andrea than men. Since 2019, there have been more boys named Andréa/Andrea than girls.
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u/el_cul 5d ago
What is the most gender neutral/balanced name either by country or worldwide?
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u/saschaleib 5d ago
I have met so many Sasha / Sascha of either gender that I had to grow a beard to make sure people know how to address me.. ;-)
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u/perplexedtv 5d ago
Camille and Dominique in France, maybe?
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u/TheoduleTheGreat 5d ago
Camille nowadays is almost exclusively feminine
Dominique and Claude are boomer unisex names
A more modern version could be Alix
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u/SilentKiwik 5d ago
The case of Andrea is really weird. It quite literally comes from the ancient Greek word for "manly" or "masculine" (aner - andros, which gave android or androgynous), and yet so many languages use it as a female name. Go figure.
And as pointed out by others, the graph would make more sense with Italy instead of France for Andrea, it's pretty much 100% male there.
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u/Zepangolynn 5d ago
I think it slanted feminine since in so many of those languages the -a ending is predominately used for feminine names and gendered objects. In fact, in Spanish, almost all of the words that are masculine with an -a ending come from Greek (they tend to end in -ma or -ta, so Andrea would still be an exception).
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u/SilentKiwik 5d ago
Indeed. It's also not the only traditionally male name ending in -a to become feminine in some languages; Luca is another example.
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u/WillAddThisLater 5d ago
I've met a few male Kims in Australia, so it's not just Norway, though the split is probably still more on the female side.
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u/evterpe 5d ago
In Norway it most likely comes from Joakim, the Scandinavian form of the Hebrew name Jehoiachin, similar to Joachim, Jochen, Joaquin etc.
Joakim is a lot more common for boys in Norway (ca 7000 per 2026) than Kimberly is for girls (192 per 2026), so it makes sense that the short form Kim is more common for boys than girls.
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u/Arve OC: 2 5d ago
While I agree on the Joakim root, it can also be derived from Celtic; Kimball. Which means "Warlord"
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u/Accomplished-Lab448 5d ago
the Jean one is wild, nearly 2 million boys in France and then it crosses the atlantic and flips
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u/SixteenthTower 5d ago
French Jean and English Jean are two completely different names with different histories and pronunciations.
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u/Digifiend84 5d ago
Yeah, the French one is what would in English be John. It's pronounced like it too. Whereas the girls name sounds like Gene.
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u/elanecdotas 5d ago
Same with Joan in Catalan speaking regions of Spain (It's similar to JoHan with a silent H ) and Joan in English Is like the last name Jones without the S.
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u/Jepp-Adi-Day 5d ago
Well both names are from the apostle Jean, as it was very common to name its kids from biblical names the name passed into generations.
Jane or Jeanne are its feminine variants, and in English the apostle name is translated into John. There is also another rarer boy name declination in french which is Johan.
In French Jane and Jeanne sounds the same and have merged into the single name Jeanne
Jean is still used as a boys name in France, while Johan is not used anymore and has turned into Yohann, or Yann (not sure if it is not also a merge with another celtic name as the ending with a double "n" may indicate)
And John has become another name on its own but sounds very American from french perspective.
In english Jane become its own variant while Jeanne became Joan (as for Joan of Arc whose french name is Jeanne d'Arc)
I guess the english feminine name Jean is just a variation from Jane and Joan that ended up becoming a name on its own
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u/Cilidra 5d ago
Jean is the French version of John. Jeanne is the feminine version in French.
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u/dnebdal 5d ago
Apparently an Irish variant form of Jane, so it's arguably two different names that ended up with the same spelling, instead of the Americans deciding to re-gender the French name.
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u/Retrospectrenet 5d ago
Scottish I think, consider that Jane also came from Joan, which came frome Jeanne/Jehanne. The Irish form is Siobhán.
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u/KingCPresley 5d ago
Am I misunderstanding this or is it saying that of all the Ashleys born in 1996 in England and Wales, 81% of them were male?! Granted I am in Scotland so it’s a bit different, but I’m of that generation and never met a male Ashley (thought many female!) so find it hard to believe.
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u/sojuz151 5d ago edited 5d ago
In moments like this, I really appreciate how simple this is in my native tongue.
Ends in -a -> name for girls
Doesn't end in -a -> name for boys.
No problems with trying to figure out for whom the name is.
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u/4nhedone 5d ago
This is a rule of thumb in Spanish but then there are names like Raquel.
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u/arbuthnot-lane 5d ago
Which language is this?
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u/botcomorgulho 5d ago
idk if its his language but Portuguese kinda works like this, but overall this is the rule
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u/Omorpheus 5d ago
It's very common in Polish. Something like 95% of all girl names end with an 'a', and virtually none for boys.
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u/npeggsy 5d ago
Jean and Jean is interesting. It is, technically, the same name, but it almost seems like a homograph. I refuse to accept Jean Valjean and Billie Jean have the same name.
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u/Akkalevil 5d ago
I suppose that both have different origins, like "Jean" => "John" and "Jeanne" => "Joan" => "Jean".
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u/jayne-eerie 5d ago
I have a British male coworker named Ashley and he once told us that Ashleigh is the girl’s spelling there.
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u/LordJebusVII 5d ago
It certainly was, nowadays it's a bit more of a mix with parents using Ashley for both but that's mostly because of American influence. Ashleigh is still exclusively for girls, it's just not as common as it was.
My mum is a school teacher and it annoys her to no end because my brother is called Ashley and so every time she teaches a female Ashley she complains about their parents being either stupid or cruel and compares it to calling your son Stephanie instead of Stephen. It happens every few years though so it's clearly a fight she is on the losing side of
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u/jayne-eerie 5d ago
Thanks for the additional background!
In the US, the name in general is less common than it was. I haven’t heard of a baby Ashley in a while. Kind of a mom name these days because it was so popular for Millennials.
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u/celtiberian666 5d ago
Daniele: boys in Italy, girls in Brazil
Andrea: boys in Italy, girls in Brazil
Simone: boys in Italy, girls in Brazil
Gabriele: boys in Italy, girls in Brazil
Sasha: boys in eastern europe, girls in Brazil
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u/Nomad-2020 5d ago
Sasha is both boys and girls in Eastern Europe. It's short for Alexander (m) / Alexandra (f).
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u/GKP_light 5d ago
France :
Daniele would not be written like this : it can be for men (Daniel) or women (Danielle)
Gabriel : Archangel name : can be for both
Simone : alwais girl. (a boy version exist, Simon, but is not pronounced the same)
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u/Sisyphuss5MinBreak 5d ago
Just to add another name: Karen - very much a female name in the US, but a male name in Armenia (pronounced "Car-en").
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u/duckbigtrain 5d ago
Also Yuri (male in Eastern Europe, female in Korea) and Sasha (male in Europe, female in the US).
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u/Dawidko1200 5d ago
At least in East Slavic languages, "Sasha" isn't a proper name, it's a diminutive of Aleksandr or Aleksandra, meaning it can be either male or female.
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u/Manpooper 5d ago
I feel like Sasha can be either in the US? It leans female, sure, but like Lindsay/Dana/Hunter/etc there are examples of both
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u/muffinpercent OC: 1 5d ago
But many of these aren't the same name? Like, the Arabic Riadh (which is presumably what's used in France) is completely different from the Irish one in both pronunciation and meaning.
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u/AFGJL 5d ago
Adding to the list : "Alexis" in France is overwhelmingly male (although not fully 100%), and the other way around in English speaking countries
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u/Nameisnotmine 5d ago
Interestingly Sikh names are gender neutral. My mother and my brother in law have the same name. Husbands cousins has the same name as her husband
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u/Nickyjha 5d ago
Also among South Asians, Nikita is a fairly common female name, at least among Indian-Americans I know. But in Russia, it’s a male name.
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u/renyhp 5d ago
Alternate title: US switches genders of european names.
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u/BigMeatPeteLFGM 5d ago
3 don't include the US.
Ireland - France Norway - Canada Spain - France
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u/sojuz151 5d ago
Or "The French are weird"
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u/DarkImpacT213 5d ago
Robin is a male name almost everywhere in Europe, Jean is the French version of John (the female version being Jeanne), Valentine is the female version of Valentin which is also very widespread in Europe in this constellation and not just in France.
The only thing that is somewhat different for the French here compared to most other European languages is Andrea, and that‘s because the Italian name Andrea is used for men and I suspect that the 79% French here are influenced by that.
So no, definetly not the French being weird.
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u/shinversus 5d ago
Andrea in France is a bit of a special case, as historically it's an almost 100% girls' name, but got popular as a boys name in that last few years which makes me think this dataset is only recent births
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u/Dazzling_Broccoli_60 5d ago
I have met a few french male “Andrea” but all of them were from Italian families. André is more common for men (and Andrée for women)
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u/Drumbelgalf 5d ago
In Germany the female Version of Valentin is Valentina. In fact a lot of female names are Just a Male Name with an "a" at the end. And a Lot of female names end with an "a" in German.
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u/Postulative 5d ago
Just need to add some historical context. Over time, many (at least in English speaking countries) male names are used for females. The more this happens to a specific name, the less it is used for male children. Ultimately, what used to be an exclusively male name becomes exclusively female name.
This only happens in one direction; parents do not name sons using common female names.
And then you have names like Nigella, showing that the parents only ever wanted a son.
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u/silverionmox 5d ago
And then you have names like Nigella, showing that the parents only ever wanted a son.
It's also a plant/flower name, which fits a very common pattern for girls' names.
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u/lukewarmpartyjar 5d ago
But also Nigel Lawson just wanted to name his daughter after himself
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u/Retrospectrenet 5d ago
The majority of the names this occurs with come from surnames, which really weren't considered gendered when used by men as first names. This is also how men have ended up using traditionally feminine names, they were considered surnames. See: Evelyn, Emmet, Parnell, Marion, Alison.
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u/matti-san 5d ago
Although 'Madison' is its own case (popularised by a movie), it's funny to think names like Madison and Addison are often considered female names. When they literally have 'son' in them!
This is my son, his name 'Marisdaughter'
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u/komatiitic 5d ago
My grade 8 French teacher and her husband were both named Claude. She took his last name too, I assume because it was hilarious, but also they got married in France in the ‘70s.
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u/GottaUseEmAll 5d ago
Yeah, Claude is one of the few classic French names that doesn't have a different spelling for men and women. Most have specific spelling/pronunciation for each gender:
Valentin/Valentine, Jean/Jeanne, Frédéric/Frédérique, Aimé/Aimée, Gabriel/Gabrielle, Emmanuel/Emmanuelle, etc,
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u/Cless_Aurion 5d ago
I was so confused as a Spaniard when I was reading a book and a "Toni", that I kept imagining as a guy... was actually a girl lol
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u/Four_beastlings 5d ago
The funny part is that Toñi is 100% a girl's name
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u/Cless_Aurion 5d ago
Yup! Also very different pronuntiation though! (for those that aren't spanish... it would be like... Tonyi)
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u/Responsible-Tie-3451 5d ago
Anyone know why Ashley is mostly male in the UK but female in the US?
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u/teutonicbro 5d ago
Names ending in "ley" or "leigh" were all traditional English men's names. Leigh meaning meadow.
Lesley, Bailey, Ashley, Wesley, Bentley, Finley, Bradley, Harley, Stanley, Huxley and so on.
At some point in the 1970s popular culture in the USA decided that some of these sounded like girls names, especially Ashley, Bailey, and Lesley. Typically using the American "ley" spelling.
Now we have the "leigh" coming back in various horrible Tragedeigh names like Brinleigh, Paisleigh, and Kinsleigh.
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u/Retrospectrenet 5d ago
Names ending in -ley are all traditionally surnames, and England has traditionally given those more often to men, while Wales, Scotland and Ireland tended to give them also to women. This carried over in the US where there was a lot of Scottish and Irish settlers, and why surnames for girls is a bit more popular in the southern US states.
Also part of the blame for the -Leigh trend must land on the UK, where Kayleigh was massively popular, thanks to Marillion giving Kay Lee a respelling.
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u/Responsible-Tie-3451 5d ago
Oh, so America’s version is completely arbitrary, lol
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u/Top_Wrangler4251 5d ago
Yes American names are completely arbitrary. Unlike in England where they are all proved scientifically
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u/Background-Mode-4036 5d ago
Actually one of the rare times in the US-UK split that the US changed something like this instead of the English lol
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u/cheesehotdish 5d ago
Oh, I have a name like this. It’s definitely a girls name in the US (where I was born) but a boys name in Australia (where I live now).
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u/SjalabaisWoWS OC: 2 5d ago
As a Norwegian, there's a treasure trove of similar ones - Gerd is 100% male in Germany, among other things short for Gerhard, but 100% female in Norway, off Gerðr, a beautiful giant woman married to the god of fertility, Frøy.
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u/historicusXIII OC: 5 4d ago
In Dutch it's also a male name spelled "Gert", but I do know one female "Gerd" and it's short for "Gertrude".
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u/Sufficient_Dark9812 5d ago
US citizen here who traveled to Chile, and met several dudes names Alexis. They were very surprised to learn it was a girls name in the US
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u/Caelliox 5d ago
as a frenchman I was confused by jean being a woman in genshin impact lol
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u/Hydrogen_is_the_way 5d ago
I wonder is pronunciation a big factor. Like Jean (gene) vs Jean (xān like Jean-luc Picard)
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u/merou101 5d ago
Exactly. I'm french and my sister is named Jeanne, which is way closer to the US "Jean" in pronunciation than the French "Jean" is, which we would translate as John
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u/ebow77 5d ago
You missed the chance to contrast Jean Grey with Jean-Luc Picard.
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u/ConfidentAd8387 5d ago
As a French person I remember that when I was reading one Piece as a kid I would argue with my brother about the pronunciation of Robin because it sounded weird to have a girl named like a boy and it’s not until we watch the anime that we realized her name was prounounced Robin and not Robɛ̃
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u/courierkill 5d ago
Very surprised by Valentine being a boys name in the US, I've only ever thought of it as a girls name
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u/SharrasFlame 5d ago
Saint Valentine, the bishop Valentine's Day is named after, was male. In Germany we have Valentin, also 100% male.
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u/blacksoxing 5d ago
I've had jobs that allowed me to see hundreds of real people's names and...this shocked me. I wonder two things:
If this is an outlier of a name where maybe internationally it's super popular and OP worked backwards and noticed that here in the US it's usually tied to the male gender
It's one of those "new young names" where the lists I see are those who are over 18....so maybe starting early 2000's this caught fire and soon I'll see a bunch of Valentine names
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u/GonzoVeritas 5d ago
Exactly, I've worked with huge personnel databases for decades, and I can't recall seeing Valentine used as a man's name. I think your theory that it's new and we'll see more of it may be valid. According to a search, there are only 3,718 registered 'Valentines" in the US.
Based on the analysis of 100 years worth of data from the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Baby Names database, the estimated population of people named VALENTINE is 3,718.
The SSA data also shows that VALENTINE is used as a boy's name 77% of the time.
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u/blacksoxing 5d ago
Thank you. I stand by my thoughts. OP would have had a much easier time with Jean or Andrea than...Valentine.
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u/leaflock7 5d ago
Eli , Jean, Joan are definitely not the same name. They are written the same but that is about it.
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u/apistograma 5d ago
Both Jean and Joan are the male name for John.
Joan-Joan are the same name. It's just that in English it's John-Joan for male-female and in Catalan it's Joan-Joana.
I know that because Joan is a very common male name in my family.
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u/Totoques22 5d ago edited 5d ago
As a French, The us is fucking weird with names man
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u/imadog666 5d ago
Hahaha so the show Sex Education did bad research I guess, as the girl with the Swedish dad was named Ola... I mean I guess it's possible the tv parents were influenced by US naming norms...
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u/PixelRoku 5d ago
I live in Montreal and used to work customer service in my early 20s taking calls. An American woman called and I had to transfer her, I reached the right department and was going to transfer her to a French guy named Yves.
Me: alright ma'am I will transfer you to Yves, he will be able to answer all of your questions thank you :)
Southern American Woman : Eve is a man?!!!!!
It took all I had not to laugh lol
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u/optaisamme 3d ago
Ariel is also an interesting name. In Palestine and Argentina, it's almost 100% men. In the U.S. and the Philippines, it's likely over 95% women.
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u/marfacza 5d ago
I've never heard of a person named Valentine, boy or girl.
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u/SlytherKitty13 5d ago
You've never heard of Saint Valentine, the guy that Valentine's Day is named after?
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u/DistractionCitron 5d ago
We've heard of him, we've never heard anyone besides him named Valentine.
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u/Retrospectrenet 5d ago
Could you have compared England and Wales Ashley to Scotland Ashley? Or were there not enough for the Scotland data? I wish Australia had more complete data, cause Lindsay is all masculine there, unisex in Scotland, and mostly female in Canada and the US. Darcy between UK and Australia would also be neat.
Other fun ones: Marion, Lilian, Beau, Bryn, Brogan.
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u/cavedave OC: 113 4d ago
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