Throw out your fave or guilty pleasure Androgynous/Gender Neutral/Ambiguous names

Manada · February 2014

I'm curious.

H and I peruse the usual sites every now and then seeking ideas.   We have our faves already tucked away, but every now and then I find one that I haven't considered before (this week it's Colby -- H. HATES it so feel free to use it!).

We're pretty committed to gender ambiguous names for personal and political reasons.   That's not to say that we don't have our own guilty pleasure names at all, and love what (most of) y'all named your kiddos.   So I'm saving the super gendered names I have up my sleeve for future pets and we're growing the list of the "could be rainbow gendered!" ones we like most.

What are yours? Bonus points if you throw one out there we haven't heard of before. EXTRA bonus points if you do that AND it's awesome and not obviously made up.

(If you get enough points I might just be willing to mail you a surprise!)

2MamazInSeattle · February 2014

Ok, random and naturey, my friend is considering Lake for her daughter, and J has a young customer called Lake who is a boy. I actually kinda like it! But could be a total NMS situation, I get that.

Manada · February 2014

Extra points for 2MamazinSeattle! I don't think "Lake" hit any of our lists...

Also: Fun Factoid: H. has a lovely, gender neutral name that suits her to a T. and is so cool it hurts. I wish we could just name our kids after her, but she thinks that would be weird......

Jazibel · February 2014

EV had Oak on our list for time (it wasn't a "real" contender, but anythings fair game for the list). I like that Kaden turned out to be "gender neutral" we've met Kaden's of various spellings.

EV's grandmother is named Charlotte, which I like with a nickname "Charlie", but our in-laws have talked about using it. And now our friends (donor sibling) may use it for their daughter. Also I dated a Charlie... so that may bring up awkward comments...

Can't wait to see what people come up with.

doodah1013 · February 2014

All of the names we currently have (besides one) are gender neutral names... Big shock. I know. However, our friends had a baby and named him the coolest middle name and I am mad because I wish I would have thought of it... It is Rigby.... As in the classic Beatle hit Eleanor Rigby.

I also love reclaiming old white man names (and last names) for little boys and girls. I am specifically attracted to Presidential names... Harrison, Tyler, Jefferson, Carter, Wilson, and my favorite, Lincoln (A says this is not a gender neutral name but it totally is...)

I have so many more... We've had a lot of time to think about it

. But I will keep my list at this for now...

SweetPea0307 · February 2014

So, these aren't necessarily uncommon, but these are definitely my guilty pleasure gender neutral names. When DW and I were in college, we would day dream about having a family with two girls with these names. I think we ended up "using them up" by imagining too many specifics, so we won't be using them. We're going to use units of measurement instead (we're super dorky).

- Riley

- Brody

rkbo · February 2014

My wife's guilty pleasure gender neutral name that she loves is: Scout

I personally don't like it for a first name, but I wouldn't mind middle.

KH826 · February 2014

My personal favorite is Reese (which happens to be our dog's name, so we would never use it). My wife likes Dylan and Parker -- neither of which I am crazy about. I kind of like Jordan. We will definitely not use any of these because we are going with family names/names after significant people or places in our lives, but this is a fun topic! I just asked my wife about it and now we keep throwing out what we like and what we don't. Can't wait to hear what the future Manada/Healz babies will be called!

redrockmama · February 2014

We only have one gender neutral name on our girl name list (that I can think of) as we already have a name picked for a boy. Cameron, it's my step bother's name so it's fairly unlikely that we'll use it, but I like it.

healz413 · February 2014

I like Cameron too. M said no previously so I just asked her why now. She said because of Kirk Cameron. I googled him. No idea he was a total homophobe. I guess that's off my list!
Thanks for these suggestions!

Manada · February 2014

Okay. H has informed me I must tally the points, unofficially of course. However. This is way too annoying to do on an iPhone so I will get to it at work tomorrow morning

. Keep posting!

ball.and.chain · February 2014

Ellis, Merritt, Julian, Micah, Asa, Finley, Ezra, Augustine, and Bennett are names on my guilty pleasure and/or regular list that The Bump claims are good for boys or girls. I can't say I would necessarily use all of those for both, but these things are obviously flexible and highly subjective.

Tobin, Emory, and Seneca - The Bump says these are boys' names, but I could see using them for girls too. I always liked Seneca because my parents met at a college on Lake Seneca in NY. It's also a Native American group. Place names (lakes, mountains, rivers, etc) are actually a good source for names like this, I think, since they don't necessarily have a male or female association for people. I know a couple who plans to name all their children after mountains in their home state (they are big hikers).

newmompeanut · February 2014

I love the name Merrick for a boy or a girl. B hates it so it's out.

Other ones I can think of:

London
Harrow (my friend has three kids and two of them are Harrow and London)
Blake
Devon
Malone
Rowan (I feel like this is typically a boy's name, but my doctor's daughter is named Rowan and it's really cute)

LifebyLauren · February 2014

Tatum, Tate, Kelly, and I've always thought Lauren (my name) was slightly neutral but spelling can be a giveaway Loren vs Lauren.

Manada · February 2014

Here are a few that are on our "list" but that aren't necessarily in a "top spot"

-Finley: - love this, worried it gets caught up in the current trend of Finn's, Finnegan, Flynn - too much. (FYI: Finnegan is a GP non-androgyous name of mine). It hasn't cracked our Top 10 for this reason.

- Ari: I've known both boys and girls named Ari.   @healz413 feels like it is way too much of a masculine jewish name for us to pick up as one of ours.

- Eli: We both LOVE this one, and as a confession, it's sitting in our top 5, but isn't there totally because if its growing popularity.

- Kian: this one has been on our list for awhile, hasn't cracked the top 10 though. I waffle on how much I like it.

- Avery: this is a GP name for me. It stems from my long-standing crush on Anne of Green Gables and the scholarship she gets....    Also a bit too popular these days for us.

**Honorable mentions that others have already mentioned that are on our list: Scout, Shane, Rowan, Rory and Emery are all still in the running for us (though we waver on them all).

**Shannon and Dylan are totally GP names for me.   I love Shannon as a boys name more than a girls.... And Dylan totally goes back to my 14 year old dream of naming a son "Dylan Jacob" (which at the time I thought was the best name in the whole world).

JGY · February 2014

I know this is a very typical boy name, but love it for a girl: Drew.

Don't have many others to throw out there that haven't already been mentioned. Micah for a girl is one of my faves. I guess I do know boy a boy and a girl Jonah.

Cameron was on our list - think of it as reclaiming the name for all that is good and right!

redrockmama · February 2014

We also had Avery on our list until we saw how high it was on the most common names list.

Aspen is also on our list could be for a girl or a boy. And Parker

Charlie, Skyler, Quinn, Logan are others that I like but we won't use for one reason or another.

yachee · February 2014

Our names are significant places in our relationship that are gender neutral, and both London (our first international city) and Sydney (our honeymoon) were both high on the list.

healz413 · February 2014

@sarahtrpt, my name (H.ealy) was my mother's mother's last name. I love it as a first name.

doodah1013 · February 2014

One of our big rules is that it has to be out of the top 100 from the year prior... None of our names were on the list for 2012... But they all have jumped and are sitting in the 40 range for 2013. We will probably change our rule.... And just pick whatever we really want!