"Tristan" now feminine given name

[Jonathan Lighter]

There's an English traditional singer named Bill Jones, born I'd say in the late ' 70s.

  Birth-certificate name: "Belinda."

  JL

Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Brenda Lester
Subject: Re: "Tristan" now feminine given name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My friend since high school was named Jim by her father. He wanted a boy, of course.



Wilson Gray wrote: My mother has a woman friend down home in Texas named "Johnnie." Back
in St. Louis, I had a male acquaintance whose first name was "Fay."
"Fay" was also used as a hypochoristic equivalent of "ofay." The poor
guy took a lot of ribbing, given that his ancestral line was probably
black back to Africa.

-Wilson


On 2/23/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "Tristan" now feminine given name
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You mean to say that by a commodius vicus of recirculation, Allison is again a feminine name. Or still, as the case may be.
>
> "Alysoun" is the name of the female lead in the "The Miller'sTale." I've known several female "Allisons." (That was in the last century, however.)
>
> And I once knew a female dental hygienist named "Johnnie."
>
> JL
>
> James Callan wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: James Callan
> Subject: Re: "Tristan" now feminine given name
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's a longstanding trend for parents to give girls names that used to be masculine -- my wife, Allison, was named after her grandfather.
>
> A good Web resource that discusses naming trends, rather than just spotting them, is the Baby Name Wizard: http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/
>
> There's an entry on the androgynous trend here (scroll down to the second post -- for some reason the direct link doesn't work): http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/archive/2005_11_01_nameblog-archive.html
>
> It doesn't discuss Tristan itself, but if you plug the name into the site's Java-based NameVoyager, you'll see that it's never been a top-1000 boy's name in the US, hit the girl's list at #819 in the 1970s, shot to #218 in the 1980s, #148 in the 1990s, and was #116 in 2004. That translates to over 800 babies per million born in the US being given the name.
>
> James Callan
> neologasm.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> What are the most popular cars? Find out at Yahoo! Autos
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail
Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org