The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Names
Nameberry analyzed the 2016 Social Security Administration data into a top 50 androgynous name list focused on those with heavy gender splits. Charlie came in at 50-50, followed by Finley at 58 percent for girls and 42 percent for boys. Skyler was in third place (54-46), Justice was fourth (52-48) and Royal was fifth (42-58).
Rounding out the Top 10 were Lennon (50-41), Oakley (52-48), Armani (46-54), Azariah (55-45) and Landry (53-47).
Rebecca Connolly, 29, in the western New York town of Castile, said she and her guitar-playing husband chose LennonWallace for their 2 1/2-year-old son. Both she and her husband are fans of the late John Lennon, for his music and activism.
“I wouldn’t say I intentionally gave my son a unisex name,” Connolly said. “As a child I felt bad for all the Taylor, Jordan and Jamies I knew whose names didn’t identify their sex. By the time I was having kids, 50 percent of the little girls I met were named Riley, Avery, Logan, etc. And I realized all soft-sounding boy names are now considered unisex. I hate the double standard that giving a girl a boy name is spunky and strong but giving your boy a name used by girls will get him bullied and called a sissy at school.”
Connolly also has a daughter, Lucille Beatrice, and is pregnant with a second son. The current frontrunner name for him is considered masculine, she said, declining to reveal it, “though with the boy name on girls trend going strong, maybe it’ll be considered unisex by the time he’s in school.”
That’s fine with her. “I plan to teach them there is nothing inferior about women so sharing a name with them is not a big deal. Being called a girl is not an insult.”