What’s in a Name? A strong gender identity, evidently:
Shirley Temple didn’t make many enemies, but Alleen Nilsen can think of a few people who loathed America’s sweetheart. Nilsen, a professor of English at Arizona State University and president (with her husband, Don) of the American Names Society, once met a Shirley from a family that used the name for four generations — for its men. As soon as Temple stamped it as indelibly girlish, Shirley IV disgustedly switched to Shirl. There was no Shirley V.Dozens of longstanding male names — Kim, Beverly, Ashley, etc. — have met the same fate. Linguists know the pattern well: not long after a boy’s name catches on with girls, parents shy away from christening sons with it. “We crowd them out,” Nilsen says. Consider some examples from the Social Security Administration’s baby-name database. Through 1955, “Leslie” consistently appeared among the 150 most popular boys’ names. About a decade earlier, it began to catch on among girls. And the “crowding out” Nilsen mentioned took place. “Leslie” fell out of favor, dropping from a peak of 81 in male popularity rankings in 1895 to 874 a century later, and will most likely never gain traction with men again. Dana, Carol and Shannon met similar ends.