Sandbox / Gender-Blender Name

Her dad was a psychic who pre-ordered her birth certificate. He only got one thing wrong.

"I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named 'Sue.'"

— Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" (written by Shel Silverstein)

Most of the time, one can guess somebody's gender by reading their first name. Most first names have a well-defined gender, such as Alice or Robert.^note In many countries you have to give a child at least one first name which makes clear the child's sex (since assigning a child male or female at birth is the only thing that matters for this).

...Well, most.

Sometimes the only name you get is an ambiguous abbreviation, such as Sam. Or a gender-neutral name, such as Dominique or Claude in French. Or worse, a name whose "default gender" changes from one country to another (or even over time in the same country!), like "Andrea" which is typically female in the U.S. and other Anglophone countries, in Spanish-speaking countries, and most European countries but typically male in Italy (in Greek it means "manly") and in the Balkan countries. And let's not forget the names that must be written down to determine the gender, such as Tony/Toni, Adrian/Adrienne or Francis/Frances.

Titles and initials can be misleading too, since many are assumed to be male. Expect Samus Is a Girl reaction when the actual gender of the title bearer is revealed. ^note This seems to be even worse in languages with grammatical gender, such as French or German. For example, in German most nouns are gender specific (A "Polizist" is a male police officer ("Polizisten" is the plural form), a "Polizistin" is a female police officer ("Polizistinnen" as a plural)) but when you don't clearly mean a woman or women (and sometimes even then) often the male form is used. e.g. A group of nine female and one male police officer would be referred to with the term that grammatically means many male police officers ("Polizisten").

... And last, there are names which have no cultural ambiguity, but were chosen for the sole purpose of being the opposite gender. Usually played for laughs, but not always.

A frequent variation occurs when writers who skimped on research of a foreign culture's naming conventions inadvertently give a woman a masculine name or (less commonly) a man a feminine name. Russian characters are particularly vulnerable to this. (Confusingly, "Sonya" and "Tanya" are female names but "Sasha" and "Valya", being diminutives of Alexander/Alexandra and Valentin/Valentina respectively, are gender-neutral and "Nikita" is a male name, even though they all end with the same vowels — "я" ("ya") being a separate letter from "а", which matches its Latin lookalike — which, in most Russian names and words, take the feminine grammatical gender.)

If a character is fated to become a permanent Wholesome Crossdresser or the victim of a Gender Bender accident they will typically have had names like this, because Fate is just funny like that.

Can sometimes be considered the Embarrassing First Name or the Embarrassing Middle Name.

Tomboyish Name is a Sub-Trope. Moustache de Plume is a similar trope, where a female author goes by a male pen name or uses an ambiguous form of her real name. Sobriquet Sex Switch is a related trope where someone's name is feminized/masculinized when they come out as trans, undergo genderbending, or crossdress.

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Examples

Chosen on Purpose

• In Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë, this is the case for the titular character, Shirley Keeldar, and it's lampashaded. This usually isn't noticed by readers because today "Shirley" is primarily a feminine name... thanks to the popularity of the novel.
• The Butt-Monkey main character in Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan's name is Sakura which means "Cherry Blossom". But there are rare cases in which it's a guy's name.
• The name "Rin" is normally for girls, though there are rare occasions when it is used for guys. In Blue Exorcist's case, the name is spelled with the kanji for "phosphorus" and belongs to the resident Anti Anti Christ lead...who can cook and has other rather feminine traits.
• Free! is Gender-Blender Name: The Show. All the main male characters have feminine names: Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa, Rin, and Rei. And the main girl is named Gou, through she prefers Kou.
• My Hero Academia has a character called Invisible Girl, but whose real name is the masculine Toru. Word of God says that Toru was originally supposed to be a boy, but he decided that this character's gimmick was more amusing for a girl.
• The journalist Dicky Chapelle (she of the pearl earrings) ... chosen over her original name of Georgette...
• The Fate Series, which is notorious for gender bending various male historical figures and characters, keeps the names of the people/characters, so in this series male-looking names are absolutely no hint as to which sex the character is. The only, sole exception to this is Arturia, the iconic female King Arthur, with her male prototype design being named “Arthur” instead. As a result, you get a cast full of female characters named such things as Francis, Jack, Hassan, Mordred, or Nero, and people don’t really question it. Though there’s no shortage of actual male characters and female characters actually based on female historical figures/characters.
• Bridget from Guilty Gear, who was Chosen on account of being born male, but was raised as a girl due to a superstition about same-sex twins being unlucky (she would eventually identify as transfem).
• Edward from Cowboy Bebop. Part of a ridiculously long name which Ed chose for herself because she thought it sounded cool. It was Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV. Even though her real name is just Francoise Appledelhi.
• "A Boy Named Sue", from the Johnny Cash song of the same name. Chosen intentionally to get other kids to tease him, to toughen him up. (His father was a jerk.)
  • Culminating in an epic fight when he finally tracked down his dad ("My name is SUE, how do you DO? Now you gonna die!"), which ends with reconciliation between the two (though he does make it a point to say he'd name his own son "any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!").
  • A male character in the movie Swingers is named Sue. Apparently his parents were inspired by this song.
  • On Nashville a country musician names his male dog Sue in reference to the Johnny Cash song.
  • Subverted on The Partridge Family. A young male visitor introduced himself as what sounded like Sue, but when Reuben responded, "A boy named Sue?" it turned out the visitor's name was actually Sioux, as in the Native American tribe. He was one-quarter.
• Nancy Drew has a friend named George, although it's always made clear that she's a girl. At least one spinoff series has attributed this to her being a tomboy whose real name is "Georgia".
• In Avengers: Endgame, Iron Man's daughter , Morgan, is named after her maternal great uncle, Morgan. He tells his wife Pepper in Avengers: Infinity War that he had a dream of them having a boy named after Uncle Morgan but they just kept the name when Morgan was a girl.
• One half of the Big Bad Duumvirate of Oliver and the Seawigs is a teenage boy named Stacey de Lacey. He was bullied for what he assumed was having a traditionally girl's name, though it may have had more to do with the fact that he wasn't that pleasant a person to be around.
• The Wayside School series has two characters named Nancy and Mac who eventually swap names to fit their corresponding genders. Nancy was named after his aunt, and Mac's mother named her after a dog.
• On Dexter's Laboratory, Mandark's hippy-dippy parents gave him the name Susan.
• The Rookies: The leader of the rookies is a Senior Agent named Bruce. She is played by Milla Jovovich.
• Elliot from Scrubs, her parents were expecting a boy. John 'JD' Dorian's original name was Joanna, for the opposite reason. Another character, Veronica, goes by Ronnie. According to Elliot, she was trying to copy her.
  • Also from Scrubs, Jennifer Dylan Cox — Dylan comes from a Welsh sea god. But Jordan named her after JD just to screw with Cox. Jordan herself has an ambiguous name, and there was a running joke that all the women JD slept with for the first few seasons had unisex names (including Jordan's sister, Danni, and Alex).
• Jayne from Firefly has an ironic name in contrast with his vicious, mercenary nature. However, Jayne is actually a real, though uncommon, male name. Characters on the show have teased him about his name.
  • Whether or not Jayne's father was a Johnny Cash fan remains frustratingly unclear, however.
  • There's also Mal and Zoe's old war buddy, Tracey Smith.
• Milagros in We Are All Pokémon Trainers falls subject to this since Milagros is a girls name. He even lampshades it while working at the Cerulean Gym in Misty's place.
• Holly on Red Dwarf starts out as a balding middle aged man, and only in series 3 becomes a blonde woman. Curiously in a parallel universe, Holly's female counterpart, whose likeness he later copies, is called 'Hilly'. Strictly speaking, as a computer, 'he' doesn't have a gender, and the name is partly influenced by HAL ('HAB' was used in a prototype radio show). Not that it matters as 'Holly' is a unisex name anyway, it's simply more commonly seen as a woman's name than a man's which is why it doesn't matter that Holly was originally supposed to be a girl. The writers were blown away by Norman Lovett's performance, and cast him instead.
• The AI 'Ziggy' in Quantum Leap turned out to have a female voice after years of referring to it as "he."
• Real Life example: Billie Piper, her mother decided that either way she was going to be called Billie before she was born. She was registered on her birth certificate as Lianne but her parents changed their minds back and always called her Billie. And her middle name is Paul.
  • It's debatable whether her first name (at least) is actually a gender blender, as "Billie" was a common girl's nickname at one point. Billie Jean King and Billie Holiday are perhaps the two best-known examples.
• World of Warcraft presents an odd case with Chromie. Dragons in Warcraft always have gendered suffixes on their names, with Bronze dragons using "ormu" for males and "ormi" for females. Chromie usually takes the form of a female gnome, but her true form is named Chronormu. For years, the Fanon was she was a male dragon that preferred a female form, although this was eventually refuted by Word of God. She just has a masculine name for whatever reason.
• Alex, from the webcomic Aoi House. is a guy... But it's short for Alexis, which is in the Country-dependent list.
  • Alex from Building 12, on the other hand, is a girl...though everyone in the house pretends otherwise at her request. It's...complicated
• Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. His father tells him it means "the one who protects"; true to form, it's written with the kanji for "one" and "protect", but is a homonym for the Japanese word for "strawberry". Just don't try to bring this up in front of him.
  • Gin Ichimaru, "Ichimaru" being the the stage name of a famous geisha. Despite this, it's not particularly feminine.
  • Berenice Gabrielli is a guy according to the Viz translation.
• The two more "masculine"-acting soldiers among the Sailor Senshi of Sailor Moon are named Makoto Kino (Sailor Jupiter) and Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus); the former is a Huge Schoolgirl who loves martial arts, while the latter is a Butch Lesbian. Both names are traditionally male boys' names; however, since then, the both names have become feminine enough to be considered "blender" in the opposite way in Free!.
• Out of the nine Pythagoras Productions idols, four of them have girls' names - Kira, Rui, Tsubasa, and Teruma. The other five just have random words for names - Shy, Atom, L, R, and Alto.
• Pat from Saturday Night Live was a Running Gag based on this trope. And then someone had the bright idea to make a movie revolving around that one joke.
• Not really on purpose, but George Parley of Gunnerkrigg Court (above) is a girl. As mentioned above, her father was a psychic who filled out the birth certificate in advance.
  Andrew: They fixed her gender [on the birth certificate], but left her name as George because everyone thought it was hilarious.
• Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson most likely chose their stage names with the intention of being edgy. Cooper states he got the name (which originally baptized his whole band) from a ouija board. Manson's whole group combined female model names with serial killer last names.
  • Manson's name is only a stage name, his real name being Brian Hugh Warner. Cooper legally changed his name from Vincent Damon Furnier.
    • Cooper once acknowledged this in an interview—he was at the bank for some reason. When asked for his name, he replied with Alice Cooper. The teller responded with something along the lines of "There are four Alice Coopers in our records." Alice's reply to that? "I'm Mister Alice Cooper."
• In Catholic countries, it is somewhat common to name boys "Maria" or some variation thereof as a middle name, or as a composite first name. Prominent examples include the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.
  • Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front, although it is only his middle name.
  • In fact Jean-Marie Le Pen's (full) real name is Jean Louis Marie Le Pen, making this a straight example. Jean-Marie is a nickname he started to use on the advice of his (now ex) wife in order to sound more Catholic, a traditional target for what passes for the far right parties in France.
  • Likewise, Joseph sometimes turns up as a girl's middle name or as the second part of a composite first name.
  • Maria José and José María are not uncommon names in Mexican history (sometimes get even a Jesus in the combination!) but most cases the first name matches the gender, as the Josés are mostly men and the Marías women.
  • In France, at least until the 18th century, "Anne" also was used as a first name for boys. A prime example would be Anne, Duc de Montmorency (1493-1567), Constable of France and one of the great Catholic military leaders of the Wars of Religion.
  • Other examples of now-female names being given to boys include Marshal Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon (a twofer, as Dominique is an unisex name) and General Jean-Louis Brigitte Espagne.
  • In Scotland, where family surnames are common as middle names (but not first names) girls often end up with middle names that sound pretty masculine. Or just plain unfortunate, such as "Duff".
  • "Mariya" from Maria†Holic seems to be example of this particular instance.
• Ukyo Kuonji has a few problems related to gender identity throughout her childhood in Ranma 1/2; then again, in that series, it's not exactly unusual. Still, "Ukyo" is reserved for manlier folk.
• There is also Ryunosuke (who's a girl with a very masculine name) and Nagisa (a boy with a name that's technically gender-neutral but used more often for girls) from Urusei Yatsura. They also both fall under Wholesome Crossdresser and are engaged to each other.
• Novelist Anne Rice's legal given name is Howard Allen O'Brien, because her parents thought it would be cute to name a girl Howard. Apparently, she didn't agree; on her first day of kindergarten the teacher asked for her name, and she answered "Anne". (Remarkably quick thinking for a five-year old.) Her mother witnessed this but chose not to correct her.
• In the movie The Producers it's said that Adolf Hitler's middle name was Elizabeth, which also turns out to be the middle name of the transvestite director.
• And Fay Weldon's parents named her Franklin Birkinshaw (but started calling her Fay almost immediately). One can kind of see the -lin ending might work as a female name, were it not for the connotations.
• The poet Stevie Smith was female (originally named Florence). It's also been known as a shortening of Stephanie, as in Stevie Nicks.
• Stacey/Stacy is a common female name and uncommon male name.
  • In Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, Stacey is the main character's brother.
  • Stacy Keach's first name is actually Walter, but he chose to go by his middle name, Stacy, perhaps in honor of his father, Stacy Keach Sr., who was also an actor.
• The first President of Mexico was Guadalupe Victoria, as in the Guadalupe Virgin, the country's protector Saint. He picked it himself.
• From the book Chartbreak, Finch (last name) and Christie. The former's a girl, the latter's a guy.
• Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid fame) wrote "A coffeehouse conversation about the Turing test", whose characters all have gender-ambiguous names. This is a homage to Turing's original article: there he presented his thought experiment, with the object of distinguishing human from machine, as a variant of an earlier party game with the object of distinguishing woman from man.
• One Encyclopedia Brown story featured a Gender Bender Name as the key to solving the case (a male doctor named Vivian).
• Vyvyan from The Young Ones. His mum never did explain why she gave him a girl's name. This is comedy on two levels; by the time the series was made, Vivian was firmly entrenched as a female name. However, even back in the days when Vivian was common as a male name, it was almost exclusively the province of mustachioed, upper-class toffs, i.e. the opposite of the show's psychotic working-class punk.
  • Also, Vyvyan Ayrs from Cloud Atlas.
  • Vivian Campbell, male lead guitarist of Def Leppard.
• Actor Mandy Patinkin, whose name is a shortened form of Mandel. Usually when you hear "Mandy", it's for a woman, and short for Amanda.
• United States President Barack Obama's mother was named Stanley Dunham, after her father, but went by her middle name, Ann.
  • US President Lyndon Baines Johnson had an aunt named Frank.
• If Stanley Allison Rogers and Gordon Meredith Lightfoot are any indication, the Canadian folk scene is paradise for men with feminine middle names. Except that Meredith was an exclusively male name until late in the 20th century — as Meredith Hunter could have told you, if he hadn't been killed by Hells Angels during The Rolling Stones' performance at the Altamont Free Concert in 1969. Meredith Blake from Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs is another example. It has been speculated that Merida from Brave was planned to be Meredith, until the writer found out about this.
  • Gordon Lightfoot passed his middle name along to the next generation. He bestowed it as a first name—upon his daughter. Which is a double subversion, as Allison is a male name meaning "Alice's SON".
• Novelist George Eliot (born Mary Ann Evans), chose her pen name in tribute to her husband, George Henry Lewes.
• The wife of Irish poet William Butler Yeats was named George.
• Claire Stanfield from Baccano!. It doesn't help that he's also a murderous psychopath. No wonder he prefers to go by nicknames. This is lampshaded in the Light Novels, where Isaac points out that it's not too uncommon for men to have feminine names, "and who knows what sort of name a *monster* would have."
  • Switching genders, Chane is a woman given a (French) boy's name. Maybe that's why she ended up with Claire.
• Miyuki Tezuka, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Raia from Kamen Rider Ryuki, is a guy. It only goes unnoticed because everyone only uses "Tezuka" to refer to him, but that's the character's official name.
  • Kamen Rider Blade has Sakuya Tachibana, Kamen Rider Garren, who's in the same boat: "Sakuya" can be masculine or feminine, but everyone just calls him "Tachibana".
• Rapper Tramar Dillard must not have cared that Flo was short for Florence, traditionally a female name, when taking Flo Rida as his stage name. And, yes, that is his home state.
• Actress Michael Learned of The Waltons. She was deliberately given the masculine name, but her parents would never explain why, telling her only that "if I had been a boy, I would have been called Caleb." The Waltons billed her as "Miss Michael Learned" in the credits for the first five seasons to avoid any confusion for the audience.
  • Same confusion, different generation: Actress Michael Michele.
  • Also actress Michael Hyatt.
  • Former WWF ring announcer Michael Kathleen "Mike" McGuirk.
  • Michael Steele is a member of the popular all-girl rock band The Bangles. Early in her career, she went by the more feminine-sounding first name Micki, but before that she was known by her birth name, Susan Thomas.
  • Marie Christine von Reibnitz, cousin-in-law to Queen Elizabeth II, was born noble but not royal; as such, she is styled Princess Michael of Kent, because she is married to Prince Michael.
  • Also, the lead character of Star Trek: Discovery, Michael Burnham.
• Another actress is Christopher Norris.
• Adrian Andrews from the second and third games of Ace Attorney, which is important because her name sounds masculine (and her last name literally is). This helps derail Shelly de Killer's argument that Adrian is his client, since he states that he physically met Adrian to make the deal, but refers to her as male because he hasn't actually met her. Her Japanese name, Kamiya Kirio, counts as well, as this is a case of Woolseyism.
  • Robin Newman from Dual Destinies plays with this, having a name that is masculine on one side of the Atlantic and feminine on the other. And is actually female.
• Kamille Bidan of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. It might be a country-dependent choice given his French-sounding last name, but Kamille's sensitivity about his name causes all sorts of things to happen in this series. Indeed, there may not even have been a Zeta Gundam if he were named Bob.
• Subverted in the book Beyond Rejection — a former man whose personality has been transferred to a female body asks to be called "Patricia", aiming at this trope. The therapist points this out and starts calling her "Trish".
  • Also subverted in Robert Heinlein's book I Will Fear No Evil, character Johann Sebastian Bach Smith has his brain transplanted into the body of a young female murder victim named Eunice Branca. Johann then chooses the name Joan Eunice Smith. He states that if "Joan" is pronounced as two syllables, it sounds a lot like 'Johann.'
• Harold Belserius from Tales of Destiny 2. Remembered as a brilliant male scientist. Or rather a brilliant female scientist who wanted to be remembered as a man just for the lulz.
• The gynecologist brothers from Dead Ringers are named Elliot and Beverly. It's implied that their parents gave Bev a girl's name to help set their identical twins' childhood experiences apart from one another.
  • "Beverly" was originally a male name that became a mostly female name. A good example would be male drummer Bev Bevan of Electric Light Orchestra, whose given name is Beverley. There was also British author and playwright John Beverley Nichols, almost universally known by his middle name.
• In the Heechee Saga, the main character is Robinette Broadhead, a man. He usually goes by Robin or Bob. Still, being saddled with a woman's name is one of the things he talks about during his extensive therapy sessions.
• Robin of How I Met Your Mother (Cobie Smulders) was born Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. because her father wanted a boy.
• Sapphire: Not only does Claude sound rather feminine to some English speakers, it is a gender-neutral name in his native French. Rather fitting for a French-born Bishounen, eh?
• Kahn Jr. in King of the Hill. Naturally, she prefers to go by 'Connie'. She explained she was named after her father because he wanted a son.
  • The episode, "Uncool Customer" has the birthday girl named Michael.
• Sissel of Ghost Trick is quite male even if he's not human, but has a female name. This is because he's named after Yomiel's fiancee.
• BioShock
  • BioShock has the class of Big Daddy known as "Rosie" (after Rosie the Riveter, because he carries a rivet gun). They are still very much male.
  • As is Subject Delta, another Big Daddy and the protagonist of BioShock 2. He is actually addressed as simply "Delta" on at least one occasion. Not a common proper name, but it's female.
• The Soldier in Team Fortress 2 is apparently named Jane Doe. Probably due to this, he keeps a note on his door insisting that he should be addressed as Mister Jane Doe to avoid gender confusion by the name. Due to the Soldier being somewhat of a paranoid nutcase (as well as several other types of nutcase) and "Jane Doe" being commonly used to refer to a female of unknown identity, it's likely that this a pseudonym. This would mean that not only was the name chosen on purpose, he chose it for himself!
• Jack AKA "Subject Zero" in Mass Effect 2, named apparently solely to have a Samus Is a Girl moment... for everyone who avoided seeing the several trailers she appears in. Not to mention that all in-game mention prior to first meeting Subject Zero conspicuously neglects any sort of gender identifying pronoun.
• The same actress who voices Subject Zero also voiced Juhani in Knights of the Old Republic. The name Bioware picked was a Finnish variant of John.
• Bryan Fuller likes to do this to his female characters. In Wonderfalls the main female character is named Jaye, which is a little ambiguous. Dead Like Me made this habit blatant, with the main female character George(tte) and her sister Reggie (Regina). Ned's love interest in Pushing Daisies is Charlotte... but goes by Chuck.
• The trope is used in the 16th century madrigal "Of all the birds that I do know", which is ostensibly about a pet sparrow named Philip, but which is always referenced with female pronouns. There is probably some sort of Double Entendre that hasn't survived for 400 years, but the song is still beautiful. Can be found here.
• Super Hero Mr. Mighty from Everyday Heroes is named Marion. (His two brothers are Michael and Morrison; their parents were big fans of John Wayne.)
  • In Holes, Mr. Sir's real name is Marion Sirvio. "It is a boy's name!"
• Lucia Raregroove, the ultimate Big Bad of Rave Master. Yes, he has a girl's name. Since he's the embodiment of darkness, his name also means light. His stepbrother's name isn't much better.
• African-American heart surgeon Vivien Thomas, whose parents thought they were having a girl and really liked the name. Also has a nephew named Koco.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Main character Tohru Honda has a name that's usually given to boys, despite being a very feminine girl. It's because her father gave her a typically masculine name in order to emphasize her femininity, comparing it to adding a little salt to something sweet to enhance the flavor.
  • Akito Sohma is another girl who was given an intentionally masculine name, since she had to be passed off as a boy in order to appease the whims of her abusive mother. Creator Natsuki Takaya has said that she likes to give female characters masculine names to "balance them out".
• Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name. It didn't stop Hanna's parents naming him that. He doesn't know why they named him Hanna.
  • Discussed in a guest strip, where Toni suggests Kat as a possibility for {...}'s lost name. Her reasoning is that since he was drawn to Hanna, his own name must also be on the feminine end of the gender spectrum.
  • Hanna actually is a boy's name in Arabic, the equivalent of "Johnny."
  • The couple in The Blue Lagoon name their son Hannah because Paddy Button had told them about his cousin's baby by that name. In the 1980 film, they name the baby after Paddy. In the second book, the sailors call him Dick after his father, and his friend Katafa calls him Taori.
• Although Edith, a male character from Ghost Dad, claims his first name is a boy's name, he also explains he was named after his grandmother.
  Sir Edith Moser: It's pronounced edd-ith!
• In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, the Tsuruya family doctor is called Sakura. Yes, he's male.
• Bullet-Proof Monk actress James King wanted to defy naming conventions, but apparently switched to Jamie to avoid confusion.
• Ruby and Pearl from Pokémon Adventures, though the fact that these are female names is never noted in-story. Ruby's is actually reflected in his external personality, although Pearl's is not (They gave him the character "will as hard as a diamond" that contrasts and complements Diamond's "emotions round as a pearl"). Platinum also may count, as while it's not a real name, it doesn't really sound feminine, which caused the creation of the fan name "Platina" (though this is also closer to the Japanese pronunciation of her name). All of these came about because the protagonists are named directly after the titles of the video game series the manga's based on.
• Bobby from the eponymous Bollywood film.
• A few Vivians (variously spelled) so far, but no mention of Vivian Stanshall (born Victor Anthony), the Bonzo Dog Band frontman, among other things, who embraced the christened name of his father (who hated it and prefered to be called Victor).
• Merideth in Dreamsnake, whose gender is left entirely up to the reader.
• Tyler Rodney Clark from the little-known novel Ghostland had her name chosen because her mother was part of the Women's Liberation Movement. However, it barely matches her personality, her only tomboyish trait being her male friends.
• Sisters Teddy and Charlie in Good Luck Charlie had "masculine" names chosen (allegedly) to attract more boys to the show.
• Eve from Spice and Wolf. It's not her birth name, but being a female merchant has its difficulties, so it's better for business. She also calls herself "ore".
• Where to categorize this is a mystery, due to limited character information, but it really ought to be known that somewhere in the Star Wars universe lurks a grizzled genocidal maniac named Danetta, who is, as far as anyone can tell, a man. Did his parents give him a girl's name? Is the suffix -etta somehow a masculine additive, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away? Is he hiding more than one terrible secret? The world will probably never know, because his creators have most likely forgotten that he exists, as it the fate of many Star Wars Legends characters.
• Similar to Dr. Vivien Thomas above, the mother of NFL player Danieal Manning liked the name "Danielle", but had a boy instead. Perhaps she didn't like "Daniel" quite as much.
• Gunslinger Girl. Rico and Claes are given male names by their handlers, who are somewhat uncomfortable working with brainwashed underaged girl killers, so the names help to disassociate them.
• Charlie from Khaos Komix is a transgender woman. Her name can be gender-neutral, however it's rare as an actual name for a girl (it's typically a nickname).
• Gary, the owner of the shoe store where Al Bundy works in Married... with Children, is a woman.
  • Mary, the maker of the Bundys' couch, is a man. He insists that his name is a male name and emphasized on the last syllable whereas the usual female version is emphasized on the first syllable.
• In Duck Dodgers episode "Back to the Academy", Duck Dodgers was evaluated by a drill sergeant named Emily Dickinson Jones. Emily got this name because people's names in the 24th and a half century aren't chosen based on their gender, and his mother was a fan of classic poetry.
• Julia gets quite a shock in Date Movie when Grant's "best man" Andy turns out to be an extremely attractive woman.
• Tiffany (a boy) and Gary the Mermaid Queen (a female) from Adventure Time.
  • Also Jake Jr., a girl. Especially odd since her parents could have used the name for one of her brothers.
• Community had Troy dating a person name Randi. He very quickly points out "Randi can be a girl's name" to avoid any confusion.
• In We Will Rock You, Britney Spears is the very male "...the biggest, baddest, meanest, nastiest, ugliest, most raging, rapping, rock'n'roll, sick, punk, heavy metal psycho bastard that ever got get-down funky." And Meat Loaf is his girlfriend, who is called Ozzy in some versions.
• Dr. Edward Bunnigus from Schlock Mercenary. Her parents were considered too stupid to breed under eugenics laws so they commissioned a Designer Baby from scratch. When she arrived, they (being idiots) interpreted the "ED" (which stands for "Exotic Dancer", her genetic template) on her medical bracelet as the lab having named the baby for them. They didn't think Ed was "pretty enough" so they called her "Edward".
• The titular character in The Little Devil is a little devil who possessed an Italian lady named Giuditta. He liked her name, so after his exorcism, he decided to keep it as his own.
• An example that probably came about because of lack of knowledge of French; Pokémon X and Y's Professor Augustine Sycamore, local professor of the Kalos region, is male. "Augustine" is even the Distaff Counterpart of the name "Augustin".
• In Little Shop of Horrors, the main character gets a bizarre-looking plant and names it "Audrey II", after Audrey, the girl he likes. The plant gets loosely referred to as female by the characters, but when it starts to talk, it sounds and acts very male. Since plants sometimes are hermaphrodites and this particular plant is also an alien the gender distinction thing gets weird if you think about it too hard.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War gives us Claude, a male Bishop; and Eve, Eva and Alva, who are male Same-Sex Triplets. Alva can actually be a male name (see Thomas Edison, whose middle name is Alva), but Eve and Eva are decidedly feminine.
  • All games with an Avatar system, in which the Avatar can be either gender, give them a gender-neutral name: Kris in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Robin ^{Other Languages} Reflet in Japanese and Daraen in European languages in Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Corrin ^{Other Languages} Kamui in Japanese in Fire Emblem Fates. This also extends to Robin's child Morgan ^{Other Languages} Marc in Japanese, which is normally a male name and Corrin's child Kana ^{Other Languages} Kanna in Japanese.
• In The Monster Blood Tattoo Trilogy, people tend to be surprised when they learn Rossamund's name, noting that it's exceedingly feminine for a lad. This earned him no end of mockery from the other foundlings, who called him names like "Rosy Posy". He later learns that this is because he's a rossamunderling, a type of human-like monster.
• In Up, Russell never stops calling the big, colorful bird he finds "Kevin" even after learning that she's a mother of several chicks.
• In-Universe, Nezumi in No6 chose to go by the stage name Eve because he plays female roles.
• Mary Palorocini of Limozeen.
• Murasaki Shikibu is genderflipped in AkaSeka, leading to a lampshading and explanation that this is an inverse Moustache de Plume meant to make his literature more feminine so it can become more popular. His real name, Fujiwara no Kaoru, falls under gender-neutral folder below.
• The mother in FoxTrot is almost always referred to as "Andy" (short for Andrea).
• Beth Metatronim in Burying the Shadow is a man. This is not considered strange or embarrassing in canon.
• Country Music singer Gus Hardin was a female. (Her real name was Carolyn Ann Blankenship.)
• A more common example is singer Charly McClain (short for Charlotte).
• In the NBC Television series Sisters, the five sisters have female names but are given male nicknames by their father, who always wanted sons. Thus Alexandra, Theodora, Georgiana, Francesca, and Charlotte are called Alex, Teddy, Georgie, Frankie, and Charlie. Alex's daughter is named Reed, which is also typically a male name.
• Megumi Kitaniji, a major antagonist in The World Ends with You, has a very feminine first name. According to the manga, he was teased as a child because of it.
• Jessica Simpson named her daughter Maxwell.
• An episode of The Looney Tunes Show has Bugs and Daffy at a spa, getting massages. Daffy sees that he's scheduled to get a massage from "Joe", while Bugs is going to get one from "Leslie". Daffy swaps the signs, so of course Joe turns out to be a beautiful woman named Josephine, while Leslie is a big, hairy man who twists Daffy into a pretzel.
• Jeopardy!'s 2008 Teen Tournament had two contestants named Rachel. One of the two went by "Steve" during the entire tournament to avoid confusion.
• Chukchi will give boys female names and girls male names to confuse evil spirits.
• Tron 2.0 has Mercury, played by the sultry Rebecca Romijn. Jet has a brief Samus Is a Girl moment upon meeting her.
• Superhero and supervillain codenames can fall prey to this, especially if it involves a foreign language. One well-known example is the former X-Man Sean Cassidy aka the Banshee (bean sí is Irish Gaelic for "woman-fairy"), another is the Russian superhero Ursa Major (Ursa major is the Latin name of the constellation colloquially known as the "Big Dipper" - it literally means "great she-bear").
• In Noob Omega Zell (basically a Straw Misogynist) has Morgan as his real life first name. Gaea's real name is Gabrielle, a perfect homophone to its male variation (but possibly less intentional).
• George in Mokepon is indeed a girl.
• Etward and Ennarcia in Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy were originally a boy and a girl, respectively, but the sister decided she liked the male name Etward better than the female name Ennarcia and forced her brother to switch names with her.
• The main character of the Vanessa "Michael" Munroe series by Taylor Stevens chose her alternate (male) name as part of a disguise she once took up, for which she shaved her head and crossdressed. She's been called Michael by associates and clients ever since.
• Major League Baseball pitcher Madison Bumgarner, thanks to "Splash". Until that movie, it was a relatively unknown boys' name.
• Sebastian Fox of The Platoon of Power Squadron is female.
• In Tunnel in the Sky, the inventor of teleportation and savior of humanity was Dr. Jesse Evelyn Ramsbotham. The narration suggests that he might have become a quarterback capable of talking to women if his parents had given him masculine names. Instead his Embarrassing First Name and Embarrassing Middle Name drove him to lonely mathematics and physics.
  • It should be noted that Tunnel was written in 1955, long before Jesse became a popular — and heavily male — name among parents of millennials.
• Homosexual males in fiction are sometimes given gender-bending names to emphasize their perceived femininity: for example, Ian McShane's character Meredith in 44 Inch Chest and Beverly Leslie in Will & Grace.
• In some areas of Sweden (such as Dalecarlia), people still occasionally use the name of the family farm as part of their personal name, regardless of whether the farm had a "male" or a "female" name. For example, a man living at a farm called Sara (a female name) might be named Sara Erik Persson. This naming convention is becoming increasingly rare, but used to be somewhat common before industrialization.
• Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss is a white haired Bishōnen although Tomoe is a female Japanese name.
• Karla, the shadowy Russian spymaster, from John le Carré's Karla trilogy and the film adaptation of the first novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. In this case Karla is definitely male, but very little more is known of him; he chose his codename from that of the first agent he recruited, sometime during the Spanish Civil War, and it's used because his real name is unknown.
• Prison Island Break changed Shadow's full name to "Ursula Leslie Robotnik". He claims that it means "Oops. We expected a girl."
• In The Curse of Monkey Island, a certain pirate barber's given name is Heart Liver and Kidneys Boiled in the Stomach of the Animal McMutton; Guybrush correctly surmises that his parents were expecting a girl. (Presumably, only "Heart" is his first name.) Understandably, he goes by what all that is a definition of: "Haggis".
• The villain in Streets of Fire is named Raven. Raven is a dude. Played by Willem Dafoe.
• Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, in Gravity.
• Some theme park rides with pre-recorded video use this so that the ride attendant can be male or female. For instance, at the "Disaster!" ride at Universal Studios Orlando, the real-life person interacting with Frank Kincaid (a pre-filmed Christopher Walken) is named Lonnie, which can be a boy or a girl. At the "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith" in Disney's Hollywood Studios park, the assistant in the recording booth who interacts with Aerosmith in the pre-ride video is similarly named "Sam".
• In Sure the descendant of The Invisible Man is named Riley and refuses to let anyone know his or her gender, unless they cheat.
• Jack Monroe, the food writer, journalist, anti-poverty campaigner and author of the book A Girl Called Jack (also previously the name of their blog), who was previously called by a more obviously female name (however, now identifies as non-binary transgender).
• In Corgi Quest, Kousuke's horse is named Susan. He wants you to respect his life choices.
• In Restaurant: Impossible, one of the interior designers Chef Robert Irvine trusts the most to renovate a restaurant is the very male Lynn Kegan.
• In Casino Royale (1967), Peter Sellers plays a baccarat expert recruited to play James Bond, with the name Evelyn Tremble. Vesper Lynd asks him straight off if that isn't a woman's name. ("...No, it's mine, actually.") Of course, there was also the writer Evelyn Waugh.
• Nemesis is Gender-Blender Name: The Movie. Alex (male), Sam (male), Max (female), Angie (Male) Julian (female), Michele (male), Billie (male), Germaine (male), Claire (male). What the reason for this is unclear, because the movie is generally a cyberpunk thriller filled with ludicrous explosions.
• Mikelle McDowell's parents in Polyhistor Academy apparently have a strange taste in names.
• In The Well of Loneliness, the protagonist's parents are so convinced that they will have a son, that by the time their daughter is born, the only name they have decided on is Stephen.
• In Dicebox, the Raffertys didn't want to break their long line of Marys. Hence Mr Mary Rafferty X.
• Jack Packard mentioned in a Previously Recorded livestream that his male cat was named Princess Meatball in part because he was "persnickety."
• The given name of Tinker is Alexander Graham Bell Dufae. Everyone who looks for her going by her name automatically assume that she's male.
• In Age of Mythology, Egyptian players get a Pharaoh with a randomly-generated name. One of the possible names is Cleopatra.
• Starship Ezekiel from My Girlfriend Is the President. But you can call her Ell.
• Morte is the Villain Protagonist heroine from Sands of Destruction. While most parents wouldn't name a child of either gender "Death", the Grim Reaper and other personifications of death are generally shown as male. It certainly suits her, though.
• Silence Montane's daughter William Ann from Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Silence's husband was named William.
• Subverted in Serenity: Leaves on the Wind. Zoe tells Kaylee she's naming her newborn daughter Hoban after her father (cue WTF from Kaylee), but she was joking: the kid's real name is Emma.
• Singer Annie Clark chose her stage name from the hospital where Dylan Thomas died as referenced in a song by Nick Cave. She apparently didn't care this would make her known as St. Vincent.
• Jupiter Jones from Jupiter Ascending. Not that Jupiter is a common name for any gender by any means, but it started out as the name of the male Roman Top God, after whom the planet is named.
• In Fairy Tail, three of the main characters are diminutive, sapient catlike creatures called "Exceeds". All three have Gender-Blending Names to some extent:
  • The most prominent of the three is Happy, which is a fairly unisex nickname.
  • In Japan, the prissy, stuck-up female Exceed is named.... Charles. It's pronounced in the French style, like the first half of "Charlemagne". When the manga/anime was localized, she was given the feminine variant, "Carla", appropriately.
  • The biggest, strongest Exceed, with a coat as black as pitch and a completely ripped human-sized body, is called... Lily. Granted, his full name is "Panther Lily", which is suitably more epic, but everyone tends to just call him by the last part of his name unless they're being formal.
• In Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifune's nameless wannabe samurai drunkenly picks out his name at random from a scroll he showed the six ronin hired to help a village. The name he points to is "Kikuchiyo". Problem is, it's a girl's name (Or, rather, two girls' names rolled into one.) The name sticks anyway.
• Filipina actress Erika Chryselle "Erich" Gonzales. Her name, however, is pronounced as "Er-Rich," as opposed to "Eric."
• Skid Row bassist Rachel Bolan, born James Southworth. The Bolan comes from T-Rex vocalist Marc Bolan, while the Rachel part may be because feminine-sounding names for a male musician were quite a thing in the glam metal scene, thus Rachel being more appropriate than Jim or Jimmy.
  • Almost the entire glam metal band Pretty Boy Floyd chose feminine stage names for themselves: Kristy "Krash" Majors and Keri Kelli (both guitarists) and Kari Kane (drummer). Only the singer, Steve, and bassist, Vinnie, have recognizable boy names.
• Sands of Destruction enjoys a double-dose of blending with the names of its two leads, playing off their Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy tendencies:
  • Kyrie is a kind All-Loving Hero who is a kitchen whiz and wants nothing more than for everyone to get along so he can be with his Love Interest instead of worrying about the end of the world. In Greek, Kyrie means "Lord" and is normally used in reference to Jesus Christ (this Kyrie is an Anti Anti Christ, supposed to cause the end of the world but really not up for it). In modern English, however, that "ie" ending looks feminine, so it's considered a unisex name at most.
  • Morte is, by contrast, a Blood Knight and a bit Ax-Crazy; she's all for the end of the world (at least until she realizes that she's fallen for Kyrie and he doesn't want to, so she'll agree it's a bad idea — life with him is fun and Worth Living For, after all). And while most parents wouldn't give a name meaning "Death" to a child of either gender, most personifications of the Grim Reaper are male. However, when you go back to the original Latin, morte was a female-gendered word. Likewise, while Morte may enjoy destruction, she's a Lady of War and prefers hot pink skirts; don't you dare mistake her for One of the Guys in that regard.
• World's Dawn has a little boy named Bloom. While that isn't exactly a common name, most names associated with flowers are for girls.
• Similarly, Undertale has a literal flower named Flowey, it is made clear Flowey is male no matter how feminine the name sounds like. Whether it was intentional self-renaming or an unfortunate given name remained unknown. His real name, Asriel Dreemurr, is definitely not this trope.
• In Rocket Age the Julandri courtesans of Mars all use female names, regardless of their gender.
• Jasmin Fiorella in Aruosumente. Lante claims that came about because Jasmin's mother wanted a girl, but he could be lying just to see Jasmin lose his cool, as Jasmin hates the name.
• The characters of Nebula are the Anthropomorphic Personifications of various planets, stars, and dwarf planets, and not all their genders line up to those of the deities those things were named after. These include:
  • Neptune, who's female, while the Greek god of the sea that she's named for is male.
  • Saturn, Uranus, and Ceres, who don't have genders, though the deities they're named after do.
  • Virginis; while not immediately obvious, his name is a variant of Virgo, the virgin goddess.
• The Mako Saga: Mac, short for Evelyn McKinney. She thought Evelyn sounded like an old woman's name, and refused to go by her Embarrassing Middle Name of Twilah.
• Panel de Pon has the water fairy Elias, who has a traditionally male name but is actually a girl. A very feminine girl. Her counterpart in the Nintendo Puzzle Collection, Cecil, also fits.
• The Loud House has an interesting example: the dad has nowadays-rather-feminine name Lynn, while his fifth daughter is Lynn Jr. Presumably he gave up on having a boy to pass it on to, which is ironic, since Lincoln was the next one born.
• Bojack Horseman has Kelsey Janning's daughter named Irving.
• The Rose of Versailles: A girl named Oscar — she is the youngest of six girls and her father always wanted a boy.
• Morgan: Morgan and Lee are both female. Morgan is an Artificial Human and Lee is a "risk management executive" who has come to check up on her. Androgynous names is not the only thing they have in common.
• Oh Yeah! Cartoons
  • The merman in the Hobart short "Deep Sea Diva" was named Ethel.
  • The Jelly's Day short "Uncle Betty's Strange Rash" introduced Jelly's Uncle Betty.
• The Fairly OddParents! does this with a Companion Cube.
  Cosmo: The good news is I've named my nickel Phillip!
  King Gripullon: What's the bad news?
  Cosmo: It's a girl nickel!
• The late character actor Kay Kuter, who eventually began billing himself as Kay E. Kuter to make it clearer that he was a man.
• The Misaki sisters from Go! Go! Nippon! are named Makoto and Akira, which are usually thought of as male names. In fact the protagonist is confused when they come taking him at the airport, since he was expecting two boys.
• Dame Vera Stephanie Shirley shortened her name to "Steve" Shirley in the 1960s so that her business mail could get through the door in an era when women needed their husbands or fathers to co-sign for a bank account. Everyone still calls her Steve.
• In Total Drama, this turns out to be why Beverly uses a One-Letter Name.
  • Also Jo, which counts as a Tomboyish Name. It also facilitates the Running Gag that Lightning thinks she's a guy.
• Jamie Foxx (legal name Eric Bishop) deliberately chose the stage name Jamie because in comedy clubs, female comedians usually perform before the male ones, so when the manager read his name on the list, he would be moved up.
• In Masks Within Masks Subject Seven is female, but takes the name Steven as a human.
• In Gargoyles' comic continuation, Brooklyn and his wife have an egg which he calls "Egwardo" as a joke. Word of God says that it will eventually hatch into a daughter, however, who will be named Tashi.
• In The Adventure Zone: Balance, the gate guard for the Hammerheads's base is a man named Barbara.
• Critical Role has Mollymauk Tealeaf, who goes by Molly for short. Justified, since Molly is genderfluid, and uses he/him pronouns.
  • One of Molly’s companions, the monk Beauregard, is female, and goes by Beau for short. Her parents wanted a boy.
• In Rhinestone, Dolly Parton's character is named Jake Farris. There is no indication it is a diminutive, so it must have been deliberately chosen.
• This is used as Family Theme Naming for the Shirogane siblings in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, with the older brother being named Miyuki and the younger sister named Kei. No one ever comments on it.
• In the Chaos Gods series, De's real name is Jannina, an explicitly female name. His parents chose it in accordance with a prophecy, expecting a female child. De strongly prefers his self-chosen nickname, to the extent that the I Know Your True Name magic of the Sister Gods is less effective than normal on him because he doesn't truly consider Jannina to be his proper name.
• In Chewing Gum, the (female) protagonist Tracey has a cousin with the same name who she calls Boy Tracey.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The main trios all have gender-blender names. In Japan, giving your boys the names "Sora" and "Riku" or your girls the name "Kairi" are considered creative.
  • There is also a manly young man with the name Terra. The gender-blender is coincidental, as he complements the Theme Naming of another trio. Amusingly, Square Enix has previously used the name in Final Fantasy VI for the very feminine main protagonist (in overseas release, at least; her name in Japanese is Tina).
  • On a similar vein, although it is not a common name in every sense of the word, Vanitas is a feminine Latin word and therefore is technically a female name.
  • Another feminine-gendered Latin examples are the Foretellers, who are named after the (all feminine) Latin words for the Seven Deadly Sins. Out of the six, only two are female.
  • Subverted with Lea and Isa. Both may look feminine, but they have unusual pronunciations (LEE and AY-za). Were it not for the spelling, the former is certifiably a masculine name.
• Raven from Wilde Life. He's an animal person who thinks of names as a human thing, so it's kind of a variant on A Dog Named "Dog". Downplayed because this trope isn't really remarked on, plus the fact that he DOES turn female at one point.
• Pound Puppies (2010): Princess is a sour-tempered male dog. "You ever heard of an adorable Maltese named Ralph?"
• And you must not forget the Rugby League player (a VERY manly game) Tracy Lazenby.
• In Yakuza 0. Goro Majima is tasked with assassinating a vicious pimp named Makoto Makimura. It turns out that the "pimp" is actually a hitman turned acupuncturist who is helping trafficked women, Makoto Makimura is one of the girls he is protecting, and he uses the name so that prospective hitmen will come after him directly and leave her alone.
• El Goonish Shive: "Magus" Ellen has a girl's name because he was born female, choosing to shift to male permanently for the increased physical power. His world has high enough magic levels that this is actually reasonably common and socially acceptable, so he didn't feel any particular need to change his name.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Cioccolata from Golden Wind is a guy whose name comes from the feminine equivalent to "cioccolato", the Italian word for "chocolate".
  • Mrs. Robinson from Steel Ball Run, though he certainly looks the part. This being JoJo, no one ever seems to acknowledge this.
• The Angry Beavers episode "Open Wide for Zombies" had Norb and Daggett encounter a Swamp Witch named Edgar.
• Ozpin from RWBY was originally named "Ozma". That isn't a real name but it comes from the Land of Oz series, where it was the name of a female character (the queen of Oz).
• As lampshaded by Ao herself, together with her Boyish Short Hair in the past (she's now in Girlish Pigtails), this is why in Asteroid in Love, Mira mistook Ao as a boy for years—"Ao" is an unisex name, but more likely used by males.
• Star Trek: Picard: Because humans generally associate flowers with feminity, you'd be forgiven for assuming that Beautiful Flower was a woman, but it's actually the name of a male Ambassador from Coppelius (the androids evidently consider floral names to be gender-neutral).

Country-Dependent

• Adrian is almost always a masculine name in most countries, but occasionally a feminine name in the United States (and can be confused with the feminine form Adrienne).
  • Hence Adrian Andrews from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
  • Or Adrian from the Rocky films.
  • Or Adrian Monk.
• Alexis, Nikita and Sasha are actually masculine names of Greek origin. Alexis is the common French spelling of "Alexios", in Russian it is usually "Aleksei" or "Alexey" depending on how you transliterate it, "Nikita" derives from "Niketas", and Sasha is a common diminutive of "Aleksandr", and a common boy's name in both Russia and Germany (hence Sasha Nein) where it can also be given to females. And to make it nice and confusing for all, we have an American and a Brit: Sasha Cohen, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Two similar names, but one is a female figure skater with the family name Cohen, and the other is a male comedian with the family name Baron Cohen.
  • Sasha can be used as a diminutive for Aleksandra in Russian.
  • Tennis superstar Serena Williams has the distinction of having a husband and a daughter named Alexis Ohanian. As a gender-blender bonus, Alexis Sr.'s middle name is Kerry. (Alexis Jr., however, is called by her middle name, which is the unquestionably feminine Olympia.)
  • Welsh-born DJ Alexander Coe took "Sasha" as his stage name, per the Russian example.
• As for Nikita, you have Khrushchev (Russian Prime Minister) and Koloff (Russian sounding stage name for an American pro wrestler), and Nikita from La Femme Nikita.
• Nikita is a male's name in Russia (think Khrushchev) and Finland, but female elsewhere. Like France. (La Femme of the same name).
  • This puts a different light on Elton John's mid-80s hit "Nikita" (the video featured a female East German border guard), but Elton John is gay... Could go either way depending on who's singing it.
  • It possible that Nikita of the movie had knowingly adopted a masculine nickname; hence the femme of the title, to clarify that it is about a woman.
  • Nikita is a female name in India, that's former United States UN ambassador Nikki Haley's full first name.
    • It may be a female name in India, but it's not Haley's first name. Try Nimrata. Nikki, which is her actual middle name, is occasionally used as a feminine name in her ancestral Punjab region; it's equally feminine in the Anglosphere, originally as a nickname for Nicole.
• Alison/Allison - A feminine name in most of the world, a masculine name in countries that speak Portuguese. Perhaps the most famous example in the Lusosphere these days is Liverpool and Brazil national goalkeeper Alisson (Becker).
• Andrew, derived from the Greek root "andr", meaning "male" has cognates in most European languages. Andrea is often used as a feminine form (see above) that is spelled exactly like the Italian version of the male name. It is usually pronounced slightly differently. The English version with a long "e" (AN-dree-ah), the Italian with the "e" as a long "a" (An-DRAY-ah). Can still cause much confusion.
  • Ah, but the pronunciation wouldn't excuse Spanish, where Andrea is also used as a female name and it's pronounced much the same as in Italian, except for the accent. The male version of the name in Spanish is "Andrés" (as in baseball player Galarraga or football announcer Cantor^* ¡GOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL!).
  • The cruise liner Andrea Doria was named for a man (16th Century Admiral).
  • Andrea Stavros from The Guns of Navarone is a man.
  • One of the women in a couple of James Bond films is named Andrea Anders.
  • In MaryJanice Davidson's Undead and Unwed, Betsy throws Sinclair's opera CDs from his car in revenge. Leading to (paraphrased):
    Betsy: Andrea Bocelli? Who the hell is she?
  • Comic book artist Andrea DiVito, Italian, was once frequently mistaken for a woman. Ironically, female artist Nicola Scott is still frequently mistaken for a man.
  • The (female) Survival of the Fittest character Andrea Vanlandingham.
  • The female sprite AndrAIa in ReBoot is given the Italian pronunciation because of the capital letters in the middle of her name.
  • The male lead singer for Lacuna Coil is Andrea Ferro.
  • In the Supernatural episode "Blood Brother", vampire pirate Benny's long lost love is a Greek sailor named Andrea Kormos. She's female.
  • Many other Italian male names may fall into this category, especially if they are the "Hebrew-descent-angel-names-ending-in-el", among them Daniele (Daniel), Michele (Michael) and Gabriele (Gabriel). What sets them apart from English is that, when such names are used for girls, they are usually spelt with LL's (and thus, treated as feminine versions of the respective names), but some languages (Brazilian Portuguese prominently) admit the use of a single L.
• Likewise, the name Simon has identical or unambiguous cognates in most other European languages...except Italian. The masculine Italian version is Simone (even though it's pronounced "see-MAW-neh", unlike the feminine English and French Simone, which sounds like "sea-MOAN"). The Italian female version is Simona, if you were wondering. The reverse happens in Spanish: the masculine version, Simón, is spelled exactly like in English save for the accent, but is pronounced more like the female version.
• For the Igbo people it varies with gender neutral names, but one constant is having Chi (God) in the name. Both males and females of this tribe will have Chi in their names. What makes this tricky is that while Chi is typically gender neutral (in states like Imo state) in other Igbo territories Chi has a male form called Chukwu. However you have instances of women having the Chukwu in their names as well. So depending on the state, the gender will be up in the air (though statistically there are more women with Chi in the Anambra and River State).
• Angel is technically a gender-neutral name in English, but it's commonly viewed as a girl's name. But in Spanish it's specifically male, rendered with an acute accent, as Ángel. The female version is Angela.
• The same goes for the Italian and American versions of the name Luca — some were confused about Suzanne Vega singing "My name is Luka (I live on the second floor...)".
  • The song, though sung by a woman, is written to be from the perspective of a little boy named Luka.
  • But what floor did Teen Genius Lucca from Chrono Trigger live on?
    • She was presumably named after the city.
• Anne, although a female name in most languages, is traditionally a male name in Frisian. Pronounced something like Oh-one-eh, but more fluent.
  • Anna is commonly female as well. But then there's this activist guy from India: Anna Hazare.
    • Well, actually, his name is Kishan Hazare. Anna (pronounced uh-na) is an Affectionate Nickname which means 'big brother' given to him.
• If a person is unfamiliar with Armenian names, the endings of the names frequently leave the gender to the imagination.
• Artemis is the name of a Greek goddess.
  • Someone should have told that to Artemis Fowl. Granted, he is told in one of the books. And takes it all in stride just like a good little criminal with the highest IQ in Europe would. At the end of the book he answers to this insult from the antagonist: "Every now and then a male comes along with such a talent for hunting that he earns the right to use that name. I am that male. Artemis the hunter. I hunted you." Ba-zing! Even better is that the phrase "Artemis the Hunter" is the signal to his allies to unleash hell.
  • And the Robert Rankin character Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune.
  • And Artemis Entreri, of R.A. Salvatore fame. Played with, as there's no deity named Artemis in-universe so it's possible this trope doesn't actually apply. Either way, nobody ever comments on it, and considering he's Neutral Evil and among the deadliest swordsmen on the planet, doing so would fall under Too Dumb to Live.
  • In Codename: Sailor V, the manga that led to Sailor Moon, Minako calls Artemis a "transsexual cat", teasing him for having the name of a goddess. He's at the same time upset and impressed with her knowledge of Greek mythology... until she tells him she learned it from a video game.
  • It should be noted that the name Artemis is unisex in Greek. The female version is pronounced with stress on the first syllable and the male version with stress on the second (ART-teh-miss vs art-TEH-miss). But basically it's the same name. There is also an anglicized male-only version of the name, Artemus. Fairly rare today, but was somewhat popular in the US during the second half of the 19th century. Fictional bearers of the name include Artemus Gordon from The Wild Wild West and the Keeper Elder Artemus from the Thief game series.
• Blaise, a masculine name in most of Europe, has been used as a feminine name in the United States.
  • Harry Potter used the name "Blaise Zabini" in passing, only telling us that s/he is a Slytherin. "She" became a popular O.C. Stand-in when fans needed a Slytherin girl, only for the sixth book to depict him as male, much to the amusement of those who assumed him to be male all along, including Europeans and people from elsewhere who (correctly) assumed that a European writer would follow European naming conventions.
• The English name Chris/Kris can be short for Christopher, Kristopher, Christian, Christine, Christina, Kristina, or Kristen, though it's more common for males. (Females tend to prefer Chrissy/Krissy, although Chris Evert is a woman, born a Christine.)
  • Seattle Seahawks running back Christine Michael arguably has a Gender-Blender name all the way — his full name is Christine Lynn Michael.
• Demeter is the name of a Greek fertility goddess. From this the masculine name Demetrios was derived, which became Demetrius (Latin) and Dimitri and Dmitri in Slavic languages. However, this did not deter Jules Verne from including a male character called Demeter Borus in one of his novels.
• Deri. A Welsh male name meaning 'oaks', can now be found as a female name.
  • Same goes for Ceri. Male in Wales, female elsewhere.
• In Spanish-speaking countries, Jaime is a male name pronounced "Hi May"; however, among non-Latinos in the U.S., Jaime is typically a female spelling of Jamie. Other than that, the trope is largely averted in this language, due to it distinguishing names and words by gender.
• Jan is a Germanic male name — or short for Janice or Janet/a standalone feminine name in English-speaking countries. Both are pronounced differently — the male version is pronounced (yan) — but on paper it can leave you uncertain. (Both Jans are originally Hebrew, forms of "John" and "Joan", respectively.)
  • Although back in the 1960s there was the male singing duet of Jan and Dean, who sang "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" and "Dead Man's Curve".
  • Don't forget the (male) American actor Jan Michael Vincent, the comedian Jan Murray, and Czech keyboard wizard Jan Hammer, who popularised (if not invented) acid jazz.
  • Male Rolling Stone co-founder and publisher Jann Wenner.
• The North Germanic male name Hjalmar, in its Portuguese form Djalma, became this trope in Brazil.
• There was male African-American World War II hero Doris Miller.
  • And US Navy fighter ace Doris Chico Freeman.
• Flo is short for the male name Florian in Germany, but for Florence in anglophone countries.
• The men's name Jean is apparently commonly assumed by American mailers and telemarketers to be female (presumedly the Scottish "din" pronunciation), even when appended as in French naming conventions to more plainly masculine names such as Joseph or Pierre. It's actually a French equivalent to John.
  • A rare German variant of "John" is "Joan", pronounced "YO-unn".
  • "Joan" is also the Catalan equivalent of "John", as in artist Joan Miró, pronounced "zhu-AHN(g)".
• Joey is a popular female name in Hong Kong, thanks partly to the famous singer Joey Yung.
• Kari is another name that is male in Finland, and female in some other parts of the world.
  • Thus, when the American version of the first Digimon movie was brought to Finland, they tried to fix it by calling Kari 'Kaari'. Doesn't really help, because that word means 'arch' in Finnish.
    • It is, however, better than Kari. At least Kaari, though rare, is used as a female name in Finland. Case in point: Kaari Utrio, a writer.
    • Keeping in mind Kari's name was originally 'Hikari' (Hee-kah-ree for all you English speakers), which means "Light" in Japanese, and helps explain a bit of why she was the Digidestined of Light as that's what her name meant.
    • Kari's name was actually Hikari in the first season, but changed to Kaari in second season and the movies — figures, because in Finnish, "hikari" is short for "hikipinko", Finnish for (school) nerd.
    • Finnish language makes a clear distinction with short 'a' and long 'aa'. In Finnish, there is no danger of confusion.
• Sol Badguy from the Guilty Gear Video Games. Chosen because of the Spanish word for Sun. And overall, sounds badass... Unless you live in a Spanish speaking country, in which Sol is a female name, and it's never used for boys. (Mind you, in English, it's generally short for 'Solomon'.)
• The main character of John Masefield's children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box Of Delights is called Kay. He's a boy. So (unsurprisingly) is King Arthur's foster-brother, Sir Kay. In the early twentieth century, Kay came to be an alternative shortening of Katherine.
• Kim, which at least in English tends to be feminine, while in Nordic countries it is masculine. Also Kimi (as in Räikkönen).
  • However, we can point out at least two male English Kims: author Kim Newman and the title character of Rudyard Kipling's Kim. (There's also the spy Kim Philby, but in his case "Kim" was just a nickname, after the Kipling character, and his actual given name was Harold.)
    • Kim (short for Kimball and other names) was in fact a not uncommon MALE name in English into early 20th century, along with various other names (Vivian, Meredith, Ashley, etc.) that have skipped the gender line in the past century. (See "Cultural Transformation" below.)
  • Former Stanford Cardinal^note at the time "Cardinals"; the university didn't change its nickname to "Cardinal", representing the school color, until 1982 forward Kimberly Belton (a man) was chosen in the second round of the 1980 NBA draft, but never made it to an NBA team.
  • Late Late Show host James Corden's middle name is Kimberley.
  • It is also masculine in the former Soviet Union, being one of the numerous "revolutionary" names that were invented after the Red October. It stands for "Kommunistichesky Internatsional Molodyozhy" ("the Communist International of the Youth", the youth branch of the Comintern). Such names lost popularity by the late 1920s.
  • The fact that Kim is the single most common Korean family name just adds another layer of confusion.
  • There's also the male Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, who is American, but of Indian descent.
• Mika is a fairly common name among females in Japan, but in Finnish it's distinctly male (as in Mika Häkkinen). It's the Fennicized version of "Michael". Even so, several websites listing names from around the world claim it to be a girl's name in both Japan and Finland. Of course, some know better.
  • Senko no Ronde: Despite being a Japanese game, gets it right: the main character, Mika Mikli, is a guy.
  • An odd case happens to Mikazuki Augus, while his full name is masculine, his friends, especially Orga and Atra, tend to call him Mika.
  • Inverted by Mikazuki in KanColle.
  • This sets off the plot of the movie Euro Trip. Scotty thought he was talking to Mike, (as in Michael) his German pen-pal, who had sent a picture of himself with Jan, (as in Janet) Mike's hot cousin. Turns out Mieke is a girl, whose name is pronounced "Mee-kuh", which is short for Michelle. Jan is the dorky cousin "Yan". Scotty's little brother, who had only taken one year of German, had to tell him this. Turns out he's in love with Mieke. This causes some confusion:
  Scott: I'm in love with my pen pal! I'm in love with Mike!
  Cooper: Okay, okay. You know what? I was actually expecting this. And frankly, listen, I'm flattered that you picked me to come out to first. And don't worry about telling your folks, cause, eh, I think they already know.
  Scott: No, you idiot, Mike is a girl!
  Cooper: No, no, no, I get it, yeah. He's the girl, you're the girl. Sometimes you're both the girl. Right, right? That's hot. But, you know, whatever works for you. I'm not gonna judge it.

  • The actual name is Meike, but we'll let it slide for a movie that basically parodied research failure. (If it wasn't intended a parody, keep quiet and leave the Europeans that comfortable illusion.)
  • Mieke is a perfectly cromulent German name.
• In Japan, Mio is a feminine name. In the Nordic countries, while Mio could be considered a unisex name, it's more often given to boys. This is mainly because the popularity of Mio in the Nordic countries stems from it being the name of the male main character of Astrid Lindgren's novel Mio, My Son. It could also be interpreted as a masculine form of Mia.
• Noah, generally considered to be a masculine name in English, is actually a feminine name in Hebrew. The man people are trying to name their sons after has a name ending in a sound that English doesn't have, so when The Bible was translated, they both got the same name. But they're spelled and pronounced differently in Hebrew (Compare nun-ayin-hey for the girl's name and nun-chet for the boy's name.) So yes, her name is actually fine.
  • "Noa" is also gaining popularity as a feminine name in Japan. But don't tell that to Gundam fans, lest they give you the most painful Bright Slap of a lifetime...
  • Similarly, Shelah is a Biblical name that can go both ways but was most commonly for men. Now it's most common for women.
  • The name Micaiah is used for both women and men in the Bible, though a variant is traditionally used for the female version in translations to reduce confusion.
• In English, Ringo is usually more a nickname than a normal first name, but mainly given to guys. On the other hand, in Japanese the name Ringo is more usually a female name.
  • In Air Gear we have a girl named Ringo, but this is also an example of Theme Naming, since she and her sisters were all named after fruits ("ringo" means "apple" in Japanese).
  • Similarly, in Puyo Puyo 7 the protagonist is named Ringo. Her best friend and classmate is named Maguro, which means "tuna" in Japanese. This is also an example of Theme Naming, since Ringo's family runs a greengrocers and Maguro's family is a fishmonger.
• Robin was originally a diminutive form of Robert, but now can be given to either sex. According to Wikipedia, it is more popular as a boy's name in the United Kingdom and more popular as a girl's name in the United States, but it's not rare to have American boys or British girls called Robin (Robin Williams was American, mind you).
  • To make the gender clear, the name has gained alternate spellings over time: e.g. Robyn (like the — female — Swedish pop singer), Robynne.
    • Even that has become less clear, as the spelling Robyn is sometimes used for males.
  • And while Robin may now be a gender neutral name in English-speaking countries, in other countries (such as France) it is still pretty much a boys-only name.
• Rowan used to be gender-neutral in Scotland (and in England, though less used there) but the popularity of Rowan Atkinson has pretty well-cemented its status as a male name. It's pronounced with a long "ow" sound when female.
• Yuri is masculine in Russia, but feminine in Japan.
  • Yuri Hyuga from Shadow Hearts is half-Russian and half-Japanese, so one assumes his Russian mother named him. It's still better than "Urnmaf", mind you.
  • Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia was mistaken for a woman a lot by fans before the game's release, although that probably has to do more with his design than his name.
    • There's also a male Karol in the same game, and a male Jade in Tales of the Abyss. The Tales series must enjoy putting names in the blender.
  • Most Japanese media render the Russian version as Yu-ri (to simulate the stress on the first syllable) and the Japanese version as Yuri. Still a bit confusing, though.
  • As an interesting note, those names are pronounced and spelled differently in Russian. The Russian name is actualy Yuriy with Y like in "May", but this is usualy skipped in translation.
• Laurence is feminine in French-speaking countries (as a female form of Laurent), masculine in English-speaking ones.
• Gillian Seed from Snatcher, whose given name is usually considered a female name. However the Japanese pronunciation of his name is actually Girian (), which is closer to the surname Gilliam, than the female name Gillian (, Jirian in Japanese).
  • Incidentally, "Girian" is about as close as Japanese can get to the name "Gideon". (The "di" spot is taken up by a "ji", and r and d are phonetically closer than you'd think.)
• American surfer Kelly Slater is male. So are two American basketball figures, former NBA player Kelly Tripucka and current University of Oregon women's head coach Kelly Graves. Not to mention current Canadian NBA player Kelly Olynyk.
  • It's often a male name in NZ.
    • And in Ireland, where it has several Gaelic origins.
• Marion Cobretti, Stallone's character in the film Cobra.
• Elis, Kai and Terje are feminine names in Estonia, but masculine in most other countries.
• Vanya is a diminutive of Ivan in Russia: a male name. In Brazil it became a girl's name.
  • So then, Gerard Way did do the research when he gave a female character a male name. Is 00.07 Brazilian, or was her mother Russian and had a Boy Named Sue moment!? Or did Hargreeves not do the research, if he was the one who named the kids? Did Way do all of this on purpose? Oh god, Mind Screw.
• The Irish name Conor, sometimes spelt Connor (although that's usually reserved for surnames). It's unquestionably a man's name in its native Ireland and the neighboring UK. However it's apparently found some use as a female name in the United States (though even there it is still overwhelmingly male). Americans not knowing its origins and simply liking the name is one thing, but there are seemingly some Irish Americans who have forgotten this too.
• While more common as a female name, in Mexico Guadalupe can also be male. Shortened to Lupe in both cases.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Kida is a masculine name in Japan, but a feminine name in Atlantis.
• In Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Pleakley's real first name turns out to be "Wendy." It apparently means "Great Warrior" in his home language, but even he seems embarrassed to use it on Earth.
• Carol/Karol vs. Carole. The former is often male in Slavic countries (as attested by the late Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła); while the latter is feminine at least in French. Note that Carole is a later construction, both a variant of Caroline and a modernization of the German "karl" root; this very root actually means "manly", by the way.
• Hilary/Hillary in English is unisex but predominantly feminine, but the French variant Hilaire is exclusively masculine. (Spanish and Italian have separate male and female forms — Hilario/Hilaria and Ilario/Ilaria.)
• In its native Greece, Kyrie is unquestionably a masculine name which means "Lord". In other countries, it's considered proper for either boys or girls. Hence Kyrie Illunis, the hero of Sands of Destruction, who is male but tends to have Acceptable Feminine Goals and Traits and dislikes violence. Or real-life NBA star Kyrie Irving.
• In Guardian Fairy Michel, "Michel" is a perfectly respectable male name, but it's pronounced the same as the female name "Michelle", which is more well-known in English.
• In Frisia (an area along the coast of the North Sea in the Netherlands and smaller parts of Germany) the typically female name Anne is not uncommon for boys.
• Auguste is a female name in German, and a male name in French, so Princess Auguste of Bavaria was often called Augusta after her marriage with Eugène de Beauharnais (himself a semi-example, as his middle name was Rose).
• Isa is commonly assumed to be a diminutive of Isabelle in the West. In The Qur'an, Isa is used to refer to Jesus (the name is theorized to be derived from the Arabic form of Elisha; Arabic translations of The Bible use Yasu for Jesus). It is, however, not a widespread name among Muslims.
• Lilian is a French masculine form for Lillian, yet still feminine otherwise.

Cultural transformation

• The long list of names which were originally male but have morphed into female because folks give girls "boy" names, but then don't like giving boys names that have been used for girls: Beverley, Courtney, Shirley, Laverne, Evelyn, Dana, Gail, Jocelyn (yes, really), Lesley (note the spelling), Lindsey, Kelsey, Stacy, Tracy, Morgan... Ashley and Sidney seem to be headed in this direction. While Ashley has definitely shifted to the female side, Sidney is still more of a male name (Sydney is definitely female, though).
  • George is an exception to this rule. It was originally a male name but, in the 1800s, became a popular name for girls. Now the female George is forgotten and it has oscillated back to a male name.
  • The reason one badass in the Evil Dead series goes by the name "Ash".
  • Ash Crimson, from The King of Fighters is called Ashley, probably due to his French origin. Maybe his true name generated the whole fruity behavior he has. Fitting.
  • The male protagonist of Vagrant Story is named Ashley Riot.
  • Ashley Winchester of Wild ARMs 2 fame.
  • Ashley Angel is a singer in the boy band O-Town.
  • "Ashleigh", long a male variant of "Ashley", has evolved. Compare British-born American author Ashleigh Brilliant (male, born 1933) to Canadian–American journalist Ashleigh Banfield (female, born 1967) and Aussie tennis star Ashleigh Barty (female, born 1996).
  • Star Ocean features playable character Ashlay Bernbeldt.
    • The "-ley/-leigh" names - including "Leigh" itself - have gone through a double or even triple transformation. Most were originally place names (it refers to a meadow, or clearing, "lea"), later becoming hereditary surnames, still later used as male names, and finally female names. It's just a Double Standard.
    • Ashley has shifted to the female side mostly in North America, while it's still a rather common male name in the UK.
  • There was a pro football player named Ashley (Ambrose) a few years back. Appropriately enough, he played for Atlanta (cue sports anchors doing their best Scarlett O'Hara, "Ashley!")
    • There's Ashley Cole too. That black English footballer guy who used to play for Arsenal, Chelsea, and the LA Galaxy, for those unfamiliar.
  • Professional Wrestler Ashley Remington, better known as Dalton Castle.
  • Ashley is a great (and seemingly popular) example because it wasn't used for girls until The '70s, so it's in the midst of the switch (as noted above). Interestingly, as women co-opt male names, they abandon "old" sounding names like Dorothy and Margaret.
  • Irish people always felt it sounded like a girl's name because it sounded very similar to a locally common girls name, Aisling.
  • Not to mention the famed author Evelyn Waugh, who was a dude (and whose first wife was also named Evelyn), or Marion Morrison, who later became known as the ultimate man's man John Wayne.
  • Though in Britain the male version is pronounced "Evil-in" and the female the more familiar way.
    • And another famous male author, Beverley Nichols. Interesting also in that his surname is one form of a Latin name which started out as male (Nicola), but in its male version has been anglicised to "Nic(h)olas".
  • Shawn is another name that's going this direction, at least in the US (Sean and Shaun are still pretty exclusively male, but Shawn has about a 50/50 chance of being a female).
• The name Chris was formerly common to both males (Christopher and Christian) and females (Christine and Christina) not to mention Kris was more common for females (Kristina and Kristine) back in the day. Today, both Chris/Kris are more common for boys nowadays (women, especially younger women, prefer Chrissy/Krissy to avoid being mistaken for a guy).
  • Leslie Lynch King Jr., named after his father, would change his name to Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (after his stepfather) when he was 19.
  • The baccarat expert from Casino Royale (1967) goes by the name of Evelyn Tremble, that is, until he is recruited by the Secret Service and renamed James Bond 007.
  • In 1974, Fleetwood Mac were reinforced by a couple named Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The former is the guy.
  • Wasn't always a Double Standard, way, way back, Phillip and Philip were girls' names.
    • How far back? Alexander the Great's father was Philip of Macedon. The name was more or less abandoned in the West, but some Russians liked it, and western Europe re-borrowed it from them.
  • Evelyn, the guy Vanessa meets in the Otherworld in Silent Hill: Promise. He's just the teeniest bit touchy about it.
• Downton Abbey—set in the 1910s and 20s has the upper-class male, The Hon. Evelyn Napier (heir apparent to a viscountcy and one of Lady Mary's suitors).
• Hayden, despite being extremely popular as a male name (along with Jaden, Aiden, etc.), is becoming a female name. A quick check of US Social Security records shows that the first significant use of Hayden for girls coincides with ... Hayden Panettiere's breakout role.
  • She actually has two Gender-Blender Names (her middle name's Leslie).
• The 1944 film Laura stars Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. Guess which actor is male and which one is female.
• In Philip José Farmer's Science Fiction novel Dayworld, (set many centuries in the future) the custom of men's and women's names has died out. Several male characters have female names and vice versa.
• In Duck Dodgers, the eponymous duck meets a very masculine-looking drill sergeant called Emily Dickinson Jones, and when he remarks on that is told "we've left behind such concepts as names being for males or females". And his mother liked Emily Dickinson.
• Ariel is Hebrew for "Lion of God" and used to be exclusively male. Nowadays it leans more towards the female side—outside of Israel, that is, where the people (speaking Hebrew) still use it for men (e.g. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon). There's also male Canadian MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, who is of Lebanese and Egyptian descent.
  • Also a common male name in the Philippines and some Spanish-speaking countries. (Filipino singer Ariel Rivera, Cuban baseball pitcher Ariel Prieto)
  • Niko's mentor on Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. Charming, elderly lady with a thing for orchids and a fondness for Alice in Wonderland. She specializes in illusions and tricks.
  • Ariel in The Tempest is genderless, and in modern productions is frequently played by a woman.
  • In The Little Mermaid (1989) Disney picked the name because it was already an up-and-coming girl's name: in 1986, the year before production started, female Ariels outnumbered males by a little more than 2:1 among U.S. births; a list of famous Ariels going back to 1862 shows female Ariels outnumbering males as far back as the late 1800s.
  • The main female character of Drowtales is Ariel, and the creator tends to use the more masculine R-E-L pronunciation when he says it. Also works in that she was disguised as a boy for part of her childhood.
  • The Hebrew version is pronounced R-E-L, while the female version is usually Air-E-L.
• One of the interesting backcurrents in John Varley's Eight Worlds stories and novels is the effect that Easy Sex Change (and easy name change) has had on gender-based naming conventions. Some change names when they change sexes, some don't, some adopt gender-neutral names, others prefer nicknames, etc.
• Tyson was previously exclusively a boy's name, but has started to be used as a girl's name in the past couple decades.
• MacKenzie (son of Kenneth) was originally a Scottish surname, then a masculine first name, but now is mostly feminine.
• Gabriel, another once-male Hebrew name, is occasionally used for girls (as opposed to Gabrielle).
• Meredith is a Welsh boy's name and a Welsh surname. It gained life in America as a girl's name, where it is now considered old-fashioned as both a boy's and girl's name. It remains a common boy's name in Wales under both its native spelling (Meredudd) and anglicised spelling (Meredith). Elsewhere in the UK, female use is more common but it's still predominantly male.
  • In Stargate Atlantis, Dr. Rodney McKay is revealed to be going by his middle name because he's suffered humiliating teasing over Meredith being his first name. The cultural dissonance means Rodney's embarrassment makes sense to American audiences but doesn't make sense to British audiences.
  • An example of this is found with the character Meredith in the webcomic Todd Allison & the Petunia Violet, though in this case the story takes place in 1920's Australia and it seems he's of Aboriginal Australian descent.
• A probably accidental occurrence in Dragon Age II: Petrice is actually a French form of Patrick. Not the sort of name you'd give to a scheming lying fanatic of a priestess.
• In English, Hilary used to be the masculine form, Hillary the feminine form. Hilary is now unisex, mostly used for women.
• In the Timmy/Jimmy Power Hour 3, the best name Timmy could think of for the (male) supervillain they created on purpose was "Shirley", which at one point was also popular for boys (an example being Shirley Povich, father of Maury).
• Paiges were historically servant boys. These days, Paige is exclusively feminine. For example, Paige Matthews, Paige from WWE, and current UConn basketball superstar Paige Bueckers.
• Taylor was once a boy's name, but has slowly shifted to being predominantly a female name.

Diminutives

• Alex - Alexander, Alexandre, Alexis (see below), Alexandria, Alexandra
• Aly/Ali/Alli/Ally - Alison, Alistair, Alicia
  • Also overlaps with cross-cultural: "Ali" is a masculine name in Islamic countries.
• Andy/Andie/Andi - Andrew, Andrea
  • Also short for Andromeda in Kyle XY and The Order of the Stick.
• Angel - Angela, Angeline, Angelo, Angelina, Angelica. Strangely enough, "Angel" by itself is quite gender-neutral in the US, the Philippines, and Latin America, though it's pronounced differently in the latter case, and is written as Ángel (with acute accent) in the Spanish-speaking world.
  • To quote Cordelia from Angel, on Wesley pretending to be the title character - "If I thought that was going to work, I could have been Angel, 'cos lets face it, it's kind of a girly name."
  • Angel is full of this trope, what with Fred, Lindsey, Harry, and Angel himself.
• Annie - Anakin, Antigone, Anne, Annica, Anders
• Bob (or Bobby/Bobbie) - Robert, Roberta, Barbara. This means that "Me & Bobby McGee" can be (and is) sung about a man and his girlfriend (the original Kris Kristofferson version), or a woman and her boyfriend (the famous Janis Joplin version).
  • Bobby Harper of the Newsboy Legion. Her full name is Roberta but she insists on being called Bobby.
  • Bobby Strong was one of the most active and rough and tumble of the Holliday Girls during the Golden Age of Comics, whose full name was Roberta Strong.
• Candy - of the Latin name "Candido" (male) or Candace (female). Thus, "I Want Candy" can be sung by both the Bow Wow Wow (with a female lead singer) and by Aaron Carter.
• Cam - Cameron (itself pretty gender neutral)/Camilla
  • Cameron is also an example of Country Dependent/Cultural Transformation. Originally a Celtic warrior's name, and was a masculine name when it originally transplanted to America, where it gradually became unisex.
• Charlie/Charley/Chaz/Chas - Charles, Charlotte, Charlene (this one oddly enough, means "male")
  • Chaz/Chas can also be short for "Chastity", as with transgender activist Chaz (born Chastity) Bono.
    • There's an alternative theory that it might also be derived from the German word for "mighty" or "warrior," which, while those are still rather masculine concepts, is better than outright naming your girl "man."
• C(h)ris/Kris - Kristopher, Crystal, Christine (And any one of them can be spelled a half-dozen ways, too.)
  • This was used in a Batman Episode where Poison Ivy had two stepsons name Chris and Kelly. the real Chris and Kelly were girls.
• Connie can be short for Cornelius, Conrad, Constantine, or Constant; however, you're not likely to find a male Connie these days (possibly because none of these names are popular anymore). The best-known male Connie will vary by what you follow. If you're a Major League Baseball fan, you'd be familiar with Connie Mack (Sr.), Hall of Fame owner/manager of the Philadelphia (now Oakland^note And likely soon to be Las Vegas) Athletics. American political junkies would instead know his grandson Connie III, a former U.S. Senator from Florida, or his son Connie IV, a former U.S. Representative from the same state.^note Connie IV was also a former husband of Mary Bono, widow of Sonny Bono. If you're an old-school basketball fan, you'll be more familiar with Connie Hawkins.
  • Then there's Connie Springer from Attack on Titan.
• Danni/Danny - Daniel, Danielle, Daniella
• Dave - though one doesn't usually come across a Davina who goes by Dave, it's still a possibility.
  • In Scotland, it was common for a child born after the father's death to be given his name.
• Denny - Dennis, Denzel, Denise
  • Used for when The Cover Changes the Gender, like in Blondie's "Denis" (pronounced almost the same as "Denny"), a cover of "Denise" by Randy And The Rainbows.
• Dom - Dominic, Dominique
• Don - Donald, Donna
• Felix can be short for Felicity
• Fran - Francis, Frances
• Frankie - Frank, Francis, Frances, Francine, Francesca (or a full name on its own - it's getting trendy in the UK for both genders)
• Fred - Fredrick, Fredrika, Alfred, Wilfred, Winifred, Frieda
  • The last one giving us Fred from Angel.
    • And the Carol Burnett vehicle Once Upon a Mattress.
      I'm in love with a girl named "Fred"!
    • Oh lord, Once Upon a Mattress.
      Fred: My name is Winifred, but you can call me by my nickname.
      Dauntless: Winnie?
      Fred: NO! Fred!
    • A one-off villainess from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers was named Winifred, and she flew into a rage when someone called her "Freddy".
    • On the other hand, we have the dyke named Freddy, from "Bobby Brown".
• Gabby/Gabbi/Gab - Gabriel, Gabriella, Gabrielle
  • Newsboy Legion member "Gabby" is a boy, whose nickname comes from his talkative nature and his last name Gabrielli.
• George/Georgie - George, Georgina, Georgette, Georgia
  • There are both a Georgia and a Georgette in the Newsflesh Trilogy. Georgia goes by George, matching her (adoptive) brother Shaun. Georgette goes by Buffy.
  • And George Lass (who is a Georgia).
  • George from The Famous Five is actually Georgina, but she picks the female version because she dislikes being a girl.
• Gerry/Jerry - Gerald, Gerard, Jerome, Geraldine
• Harry - Harold, Henry (e.g. Prince Harry, who if he ever becomes King will be Henry IX), Harriet. Can also be a full name in its own right, as in Harry Potter or Harry Styles from One Direction.
  • Sherlock: John Watson's sister Harriet "Harry" Watson.
• Jackie - Usually short for Jacqueline, but used to be common as a male nickname for John or Jack.
  • Hop to It has Jaclyn Smith, who chooses to go by Jack after getting sick of people guessing (correctly) that she's named after the Charlie's Angels actor Jaclyn Smith. It's stated that Jackie elicited the same reactions, but Jack does not.
• Joey/Jo(e) - Joseph, Jocelyn, Josette, Joetta, Josephine, Joanne, Joanna, Jodie, Majora
  • Jo March from Little Women. It's stated in the book that this diminutive is one of the things that add to her image as a tomboy. In the sequels, her sister Meg has a daughter named after Jo, but they call her Josie to distinguish between them.
    • Then there is the man Jo had a crush on, who later married her sister Amy instead. His first name was Theodore, but because he found Teddy too feminine, he nicknamed his last name (Laurence) instead, and insisted on being called Laurie.
  • In one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will gets a part on a soap opera. He gets his script and rehearses having to kiss someone named Jodie who he assumes is a woman. When he starts shooting, it turns out that Jodie is a man.
• Ken - Kenneth, Kendall, Kendra (needless to say, Ken is mostly a boy's nickname)
• Kim - Kimberley, Kimball
• Lulu
  • In Code Geass, the main character was named Lelouch, an extremely uncommon name, even in French - in which it could be translated as "The Deceit", if you ignore grammar - and unheard of everywhere else. He is a man. Due to the Japanese language, it was pronounced "lulushu". The one character who kept using it suffered constant romantic setbacks, despite Lelouch barely paying any attention to it. Or her, really.
• Mackenzie (or McKenzie) was originally a boy's name (son of Kenneth), but is now mostly a girl's name.
• Max - Maximilian, Maximiliana, Maxine, Maximus, Maxwell, Maxim, Maximum
• Mel - Melvin, Melanie, Melissa, Amelia
• Mickie/Mickey - Michelle, Michael (Mickie James is the most notable female to bear the name "Mickie").
  • Due to the nickname deriving from these names, Mike from Mike, Lu & Og should fit in here. Her given name, however, is the rathern uncommon Michelanne, but still she prefers Mike.
  • Classic SF short story Placet is a Crazy Place has fraternal twins Michaelina (female) and Ichabod (male) Witt. They are universally known as "Mike and Ike".
  • Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak of the Honor Harrington series, is known to her family and close friends as Mike.
• Mitch - Traditionally short for the male name Mitchell, but a common nickname for Michelle in the Philippines.
• Mo - Maurice, Moe, Mohamed, Monique
• Nic/Nick/Nicki/Nicky - Nicole, Nicola, Nicholas... Phoenix? or possibly a full name. Also, Dominique..
  • Phoenix is not that much of a longshot. After all, it's pronounced "Fee-niks".
  • Interestingly, as the popularity of the name Nicholas grew in the English speaking world during the second half of the 20th century it become less common for men to use the "Nicky" variant.
• Pat - Patrick, Pádraig (the Gaelic form of Patrick) and Patricia. This was the name of an SNL character whose whole joke was that nobody could tell whether the character was a male or a female.
  • Also in the case of "Patty". St. Patrick's Day is known as St. Patty's, especially in the United States.
    • Paddy is a perfectly fine male diminutive of Patrick. "Pattie" and "Patti" are used for girls called Patricia, while "Patty" was originally a variant of Matty, which was a diminutive form of "Martha". Mistaking "Paddy" (male) for "Patty" (female) isn't looked on very kindly by the people with these names. And it's ''Paddy's Day'', never ''Patty's'', in Ireland.
    • However, in Australia, the use of "Patty" as a diminutive for Patrick is not unheard of. For example, there's an Australian in the NBA known as Patty Mills.
  • Used in the manual for Fallout 2. Because the gender and sexual orientation of the first game's protagonist is not determined, his/her journal entry simply refers to his/her significant other as "Pat".
  • Sensation Comics: Dr. Pat's full name is Patricia Windsor but she goes by Pat. Occasionally people are quite suprised when she shows up since they were expecting by the name that Dr. Pat would be a man.
• Reg/Reggie - Regina, Reginald
• Ronnie/Ronny - Ronald, Veronica, Sharon (especially in its "shah-ron" pronunciation)
• Rosie - A fine girl's name on its own, or it can be short for Roosevelt (incidentally, Dutch for "Rose field"), as in Mr. Rosey Grier. The BBC sitcom Rosie used it as a diminutive for the surname of the protagonist, PC-in-training Penrose.
• Sal - Salvatore, Sally
• Sam - Samuel, Samantha
  • One notorious example is Samantha Carter, from Stargate SG-1. She's once asked by an alien what "Sam" means, and jokingly answers, "That my dad wanted a boy."
  • Another notorious example is in John Scalzi's The Android's Dream, since Sam's sex is deliberately never mentioned in the book. The author noticed he hadn't mentioned Sam's sex after a few chapters, and ran with it.
  • Also used in a gender-confusion situation with Salome Fredericks in Otherland.
• In Chuck, Sarah eventually reveals that her birth name is "Sam" (she previously revealed that her middle name is "Lisa"). It's not clear if it's "Samantha" or just "Sam". Her real last name is never revealed.
• Sandy - Cassandra, Sandra, Alexander, Alexandra (say these last two aloud and you'll see why). It's mostly used for girls, such as in Grease and SpongeBob SquarePants. The hurricane that slammed into the Eastern United States in October 2012 had its name used as a female.
  • Baseball legend Sandy Koufax (given name Sanford) is arguably the best-known male example, at least in North America.
  • There's also Alasdair, which is based on Alexander.
  • Joked with on Scrubs.
  Dr. Cox: Sandy!
  JD: You know, Sandy isn't necessarily a girl's name.
  Dr. Cox: It's short for Sandra.
  • In Identity Thief, Sandy Patterson is constantly teased about his first name, despite him constantly correcting people and pointing out that he was named after Sandy Koufax. It also works for Diana, who uses the neutral name to open several credit cards and make a fake driver's license with the same Social Security Number.
• Sasha - Alexander/Alexandra, in Russian. More typically used with males in eastern Europe but with females in America.
  • In Akata Witch, Sunny is told about a person named Sasha and is surprised when he is a boy.
• Steve - Steven/Stephen, Stephanie
• Ted/Teddy/Teddi/Teddie - Theodore, Theodora, Edward
• Terry/Teri - Terrance, Teresa
• Tommy - Thomas, Thomasina (though admittedly not a very common girls' name often now)
• Tony/Toni - Anthony, Antoinette, Antonio, Antonia—but could also be a full name.
• Trini (which is usually feminine), is short for Trinidad, a Hispanic name meaning "trinity"; male Hispanic folk singer Trini Lopez uses this first name (grammatically feminine) as a short form of Trinidad which is used by both men and women.
• Valya - Valentin, Valentina (from Russia).
• Vic/Vicki/Vicky - Victor, Victoria
• Wil(l) - Generally William, but can also be Wilma, Wilhemina, and as Buffy fans know, Willow.
• Zhenya - Eugene/Eugenia (from Russia).
• Lip Service: Sam, Frankie, Jay, Fin. Frankie tried to make use of this to pass herself off as Jay, which would have worked better if it weren't for his Embarrassing Middle Name.

Gender-Neutral

• English:
  • Adrian/Adrianne/Adrianna
  • Aidan/Aiden
  • Andy: Andrew (m), Andrea (f)
  • Alex: Alexander (m), Alexa/Alexandra/Alexandria (f), with US soccer star Alex Morgan being the best-known female example these days
  • Ali
  • Angel
  • Ari
  • Armani
  • Ash
  • Ashley/Ashleigh/Ashlie/aScHl3y
  • Ashton: Kutcher, Holmes (m); Moore, Shepherd (f)
  • Aubrey: actor/rapper Graham (m), actress Plaza (f)
  • Averil/Avril
  • Avery
  • Bailey/Baylee
  • Billy (m)/Billie (f)
  • Blaine
  • Blair(e): McDonough, Underwood (m), Chenoweth, Waldorf (f)
  • Blake: Lively, Belladonna (f), Shelton (country singer) (m)
  • Bobbie/Bobbi/Bobby
  • Brett(e): Butler (baseball player and actress), Favre (legendary NFL quarterback). "Bret", however, is still largely male (as in Hart or Michaels).
  • Brook(e): Basketball player Brook Lopez, actress Brooke Shields
    • Brook Lopez's twin brother, also an NBA player, has his own Gender-Blender Name - Robin.
  • Brooklyn
  • Bryce/Brice: Bryce Harper (baseball player), Bryce Dallas Howard (actress)
  • Cameron: Crowe (m), Diaz (f), Howe (f). Also the birth name of NFL quarterback Cam Newton.
  • Carol(l) (mostly anglicised to Charles, but Carol is still a common boys' name in Cornwall) (unless one's last name is Shelby) (puppeteer Spinney (m) and comedian and actress Burnett (f))
    • See also the Country-Dependent files, for the French and feminine Carole.
  • Carlin
  • Carmen
  • Carson (female: McCullers, author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Pickett, American soccer player; male: Palmer and Wentz, NFL quarterbacks)
  • Cary
  • Casey: Kasem, Affleck (m); Lynch (f)
  • Cassidy
  • Cat/Kat/Katt
  • Cayman: Mitchell (m), Ilika (f)
  • Charlie: Charles (m), Charlotte (f)
  • Chase
  • Chelsea: Almost exclusively female, with rare exceptions such as actor Chelcie Ross.
  • Chris/Kris
  • "Christy" - but only if it's spelled exactly as is, as in the turn-of-the-20th-century New York (now San Francisco) Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson. All other spellings - "Christie", "Kristy", "Cristi", and the metathesized "Kirstie" - are exclusively feminine.
  • Clark
  • Cody
  • Corin
  • Cory/Corey/Kory
  • Courtney (American actress Thorne-Smith, American WNBA player Vandersloot, American football player Hall, West Indian [male] cricketer Walsh)
    • Dakota/Koda
  • Dale: Actress-singer Dale Evans, former NBA player Dale Davis, and NASCAR greats Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jr.
  • Dallas
  • Dana (Carvey, male, and actress Delany, female)
  • Darren/Daryn
  • Daryl (Hall, pop singer, and Hannah, actress)
  • Devin/Devon/Devonne (My So-Called Life had both actor Devon Gummersall and actress Devon Odessa)
  • Dillon/Dylan
  • Donny, short for Donatello or Donatella
  • Drew: Barrymore (f), Carey (m), Saturday (f), Pickles (m)
    • Drew Carey's middle name is Allison, leading costar Colin Mochrie (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) to tease him by pointing out that all three of his names are girly.
  • Erin
  • Evan (Lemonheads vocalist Dando, actress Evan Rachel Wood)
  • Evelyn: Author Evelyn Waugh (christened with the name Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh; his family called him Evelyn) is the most commonly known male Evelyn. Humorously, his first wife was also named Evelyn.
  • Francis
  • Frankie (actor Muniz and singer Valli, male, and Frankie Heck from The Middle, female)
  • Freddy/Freddie/Freddi: As a girl's name, it can be short for Freda/Frida and Freida/Frieda.
  • Gabby, short for Gabriel or Gabrielle
  • Gail/Gale (Male: Hall of Fame NBA player Gail Goodrich, Hall of Fame NFL player Gale Sayers; female: American sprinter and multiple Olympic gold medalist Gail Devers)
  • Genesis: Rhapsodos (from Crisis Core), Rodriguez (female actress)
  • George/Georgie/Georgina
  • Glen/Glenn: Campbell, Miller, Jacobs (m); Close (f)^note all the named examples except Campbell are "Glenn"s
  • Gray/Grey/Greyson
  • Haley/Hayley/Hailey etc: On the masculine side, we have actor Haley Joel Osment and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour; on the feminine side, we have actress Hayley Mills, as well as Haley Starshine from The Order of the Stick and college basketball star/internet personality Haley Cavinder.
  • Harley
  • Harper (Lee)
  • Hudson (Leick)
  • Hunter
  • Ira
  • Jade
  • Jaden/Jayden
  • James (King, and Blake Lively's daughter)
  • Jamie: On the feminine side we have Jamie Lee Curtis and Jamie Lynn Spears. On the masculine side we have comedians Jamie Foxx and Jamie Kennedy, plus football/soccer star Jamie Vardy.
  • Jan
  • Jaren/Jaryn
  • Jean: actor Jean Reno (m), humorist Jean Shepherd (m); country singer Jean Shepard (f), X-Men character Jean Grey (f)
  • Jerry (Springer and Hall)
  • Jeryn
  • Jesse/Jessie^note  Except Oop North where "Jessie" is exclusively a girls' name - technically short for Jessica, but this elongated name doesn't happen to girls outside the leafier parts of Cheshire or upmarket areas of Manchester. Hilarity Ensues when men from the upmarket South called Jesse come north bearing a currently trendy name.
  • Jo/Joe/Joey/Joelle
  • Jody/Jodi/Jodie: actress Jodie Foster and NBA player Jodie Meeks.
  • Jordan (Season 16 of The Amazing Race featured both a male and a female Jordan.)
    • Jordan Todosey (who is a girl) plays Adam (who is a transgender boy) on Degrassi.
  • Kaden/Kayden
  • Kay
  • Kelly (In fact, check out this article, in which a Kelly Hildebrandt marries a Kelly Hildebrandt: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/31994977/ns/today-today_people/?GT1=43001)
    • Ever wondered how to pronounce Ceallach's name from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones? Guess how the male form of Kelly is derived.
    • Ceilidh and Kaylee too, depending on the accent.
  • Kelsey (Mostly a girl's name, but its most famous bearer, Kelsey Grammer, is a man)
  • Kendall (Schmidt and Jenner, whose birthdays are notably one day apart)
  • Kerry (Washington, King, and Von Erich)^note Kerry Von Erich used his real first name; his real family name was Adkisson.
  • Kimball
  • Kimberly (Almost exclusively female nowadays; historically male Kimberlys were more common)
  • Kirby
  • Kit
  • Kyle
  • Laurie
    • Almost exclusively female, except in the UK, where it is/was a common nickname for Laurence/Lawrence. A good example is singer Laurie London, who made "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" into a pop hit in the late 1950s — as a 14-year-old boy who may have sounded like an adult female to some.
  • Lee/Lea/Leigh
  • Leo: Leopold and Leonard (m), Leonora (f)
  • Leslie/Lesley (Nielsen (m); Hope and Mann (f). Also the original first name of Bob Hope.)
  • Lindsay/Lindsey (male US Senator Lindsey Graham, female tennis great Lindsay Davenport, and actress Lindsay Lohan)
  • Logan (Mostly a male name)
  • London
  • Loren/Lauren
    • Loren was far more common as a male name in the first half of the 20th century, but hasn't been too popular since the '70s, with rare exceptions such as former NBA players Meyer and Woods, and former PGA Tour (golf) star Roberts.
  • Lou
  • Lynn (female country singer Anderson or male Snot vocalist Strait, both of whom are no longer with us.)
  • Mackenzie/McKenzie: Astin (m), former NCAA quarterback Milton (m), Foy (f), Davis (f), Phillips (f)^note Milton is a "McKenzie"; the others are Mackenzies
  • Mallory
  • Marian (Largely a female name except in Eastern European countries, where it's a male name.)
  • Marion (This was originally a female name, and a spelling variant of Marian. However, it gained popularity as a male name in the United States due to the Revolutionary War officer Francis Marion, who had it as a surname. John Wayne was born Marion Morrison.)
  • Marley/Marlee
  • Marty/Marti
  • Mason (still mostly male, but females are not unheard of)
  • Max
  • Mel
  • Mischa
  • Monty: Longtime Let's Make a Deal host Monty Hall (male; his first name at birth was Monte), singer and film composer Monty Norman (also male), and Monty Kirkham, the suffering female assistant to Marty Wolf in the film Big Fat Liar.
  • Morgan (Fairchild and Freeman)
  • Nico/Ni(k)ko, a variant of Nicolas, Nikola, or Nicole
  • Noel: musician Noel Gallagher, and female author Noel Streatfeild
  • Page/Paige (male wrestler Page Falkinburg, a.k.a Diamond Dallas Page, though he did change his name to "Dallas Page" in 2003, female wrestler Paige, and current NCAA women's basketball superstar Paige Bueckers)
  • Palmer
  • Parker
  • Pat, short for Patrick/Patricia
  • Paxton
  • Payton/Peyton
  • Phoenix
  • Quinn/Quin: AFK has Q, who's a female character. It seems this may stand for Quinn, as that's one of her alts' names, but also an example as he's male. Real-life examples include actress Quinn Cummings and (male) NBA coach Quin Snyder. As well as the Canadian soccer player Quinn, who was born female with the family name of Quinn, but since coming out as transgender and non-binary uses only the family name, as well as "they" pronouns. The player still competes with women, based on biological sex instead of gender identity.
  • Rain/Raine/Reign
  • Randy (females are more likely to be Randi)
  • Raphael/Raphaela/Raph
  • Raven
  • Re(a)gan
  • Rebel
  • Reese (It's more of a girl's name than a boy's name. Reese Witherspoon is pretty much the only person of note bearing the name)
    • Reese Witherspoon isn't the greatest example as Reese is her mother's maiden name. Her real first name is Laura. That doesn't stop people from naming their daughters Reese, however.
  • Remington
  • Remy: male actor Remy Hii, and actress Remy Ryan
  • Rene (Mostly an alternate spelling of Renee in English-speaking countries, e.g. Rene Russo, but a masculine name in French and Spanish-speaking countries.)
  • Riley/Reilly
  • Ripley
  • River (Phoenix and Tam)
  • Robin/Robyn (Male: Williams and Gibb; female: Curtis and Givens)
    • And Robyn Miller, co-developer of Myst
  • Ronny/Ronnie
  • Rooney
  • Rory
  • Rowan: Atkinson (m); Blanchard (f)
  • Ryan is mostly a male name, but is not that uncommon of a female name: for example, actress Ryan Newman (not to be confused with the male NASCAR driver) or Ryan Shamrock, storyline sister of Ken Shamrock in late-'90s WWF. (Her real name is the unquestionably feminine Alicia Webb.)
  • Rylan
  • Sage: Stallone (m), Steele (f)
  • Sam (diminutive of either Samuel or Samantha)
  • Scout
  • Sean: Connery (m), Young (f)
  • Sha(y)ne
  • Shannon is mostly a female name (as in Tweed, Playboy Playmate/actress/wife of Gene Simmons) but can also be a male name (as in Hoon, the late frontman of Blind Melon, wrestler Shannon Moore, or Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe)
  • Shawn can be male (as in Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter or Shawn Michaels) or female (as in Olympic gold medal gymnast Shawn Johnson). Sean and Shaun, on the other hand, are almost exclusively male, except in rare cases such as actress Sean Young (Sean being her middle name; her first name is Mary) and former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult (b. Shauna Reynolds).
  • Shay: Kelly (m), Mitchell (f)
  • Shelby
  • Sheridan
  • Shelly/Shelley is traditionally a female name, but is occasionally a nickname for Sheldon.
  • Sidney/Sydney (as in the Pittsburgh Penguins' Crosby) is mostly for males, but has been quickly overtaken as a female name.
  • Skye
  • Skylar/Skyler
  • Spencer: Spencer Pratt is a guy, Spencer Hastings from Pretty Little Liars is female.
  • Stac(e)y
  • Stevie (Wonder and Nicks, in both cases as diminutives of their birth names [respectively Stevland and Stephanie])
  • Suri: Krishnamma (m), Cruise (f)
  • Tanner
  • Taryn
  • Tatum: Bell (m), O'Neal (f)
  • Taylor (Swift and Lautner, who dated each other for a while leading to speculation of what their Portmanteau Couple Name would be.) At first, it wasn't that popular a name, but was used quite often in the 80s as a boys' name. However, when the 80s became the 90s, it blew up on the girls' side, hitting the top 10, while it stalled in the lower half of the top 100 boys' names for the rest of the decade.
  • Tegan
  • Terry/Terri (often as diminutives of Terence or Teresa, though they are sometimes used as full names)
  • Tristan. It's spelling tends to vary between -tan, -ton, -ten, tin, and more rarely -tian, and boys tend to use "a" and "o" while girls typically spell it with an "e" or "i", but the pronunciation is usually the same. Some girls may also shorten it to Trista or Tris.
  • Tony/Toni (as diminutives of Anthony, Antonia, or as in the case of the female member of Captain & Tennille, Antoinette)
  • Tory
  • Trac(e)y: Peaked in the 60s.
  • Tyler
  • Tyson: It's almost exclusively a boys' name though.
  • Val
  • Vivian can be gender-neutral in English, but Vyvyan is masculine and Vivien/Vivienne are feminine (however Vivien is masculine in French).
  • Whitney: It wasn't very common originally, but jumped in popularity in the mid-80s thanks to Whitney Houston.
  • Will: William/Willard/Wilke/Willis (m), Wilhelmina/Wilma (f)
  • Wren
  • Zane
  • Zephyr
• French:
  • Ange
  • Camille
  • Céleste
  • Clarence
  • Claude
  • Dani
  • Dominique
  • Eden
  • Erwan (Typical Breton name)
  • Hyacinthe
  • Louison
  • Mal(l)aury, Mallory
  • Maxence
  • Maxime
  • Nolwenn (Typical Breton name)
  • Philippe used to be gender-neutral but is nowadays primarily male.
  • Sacha
  • Stéphane, though Stéphanie also exists for women.
  • Swann (Typical Breton name)
  • Térence
  • Yann (Typical Breton name)
  • Yannick (Typical Breton name)
• Hebrew
  • A site listing names gives over a thousand names which are gender-neutral. That's 40% of all the names given on the site. Of course, most of them tend to be more common for one gender than another.
• Igbo
  • Ekeoma (Good Eke)
  • Nkasiobi (Consolation)
  • Nkemdirim (Mine should remain for me)
  • Nkemjika (What I have is greater)
  • Obioma (Benevolence)
  • Oguguo (The consoler/Pacifier)
  • Olileanya(Expectation/Hope)
  • Ozoemena (May another not happen)
  • Uzooma (Prosperous access)
• Irish:
  • Caoilte (pronounced Queel-sha)
  • Saoirse (although mostly female. Pronounced Seer-sha in most Irish accents, Sur-sha in a few)
• Japanese (Note, that anime/manga/otherwise fictional characters tend to have more extravagant names than RL people so take everything on this list with a huge grain of salt. Also, the kanji usually makes the gender obvious.)
  • Akira (Hokuto, Sohma, Okuzaki, Kazama, Touya Takamura, Satou, Yuki, Katou, Kamiya, Sakamoto, Okouchi or Ishida, Kenjou)
    • Akira Yamamoto is male in the original Space Battleship Yamato, but female in Space Battleship Yamato 2199.
  • Aoi (Sakuraba (Girl), Hyodou (Guy pretending to be a girl) and Futaba (woman), Tategami (girl) Asahina, Shingo)
  • Asuka (Langley Sohryu, Tenjoin, Kazama, Domon, Takizawa, or the one from Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger)
  • Ayumi: Ayumi Hamasaki, a famous j-pop singer, and Ayumi Miyazaki, best known for singing for Digimon Adventure and also Sakagami
  • Ayumu (Kasuga and Nishizawa are female. Aikawa, Narumi, Shourinji and Murase are male.)
  • Chiaki (Kuriyama, Tani, Nanami, Omigawa or Takahashi)
  • Chihiro (Enomoto, "Sen", Fujisaki, Fushimo, Suzuki, or the one from Kamen Rider Amazons)
  • Haruhi (Suzumiya (girl), Fujioka (girl pretending to be a guy))
  • Haruka (Saigusa, Nanase, Kasugano, Tenoh or a tengu or Haruno - the problem with the last one was that someone else gave him that name deliberately, and he doesn't really like it because he's a badass in-universe)
  • Hayate (Ayasaki and Yagami)
  • Hibiki (Kugenin a.k.a. Siegfried, one of Motoko's Split Personalities, Takane, Houjou, Tachibana or Ganaha)
  • Hikaru (Hiyama, Amano, Shidou or Shindo, Midorikawa, Ichihoshi) Ichijo,Hoshina,Kujou, Jimmy's japanese name.)
    • Notable as both male and female use the same kanji, making it a bona fide unisex name.
  • Hinata (Hyuga, Hiramitsu, Wakaba and Hakamada of Ro-Kyu-Bu! are female while Shinatani and Kurenai are males.)
  • Hiromi (the one from Patlabor is a guy, whereas the one that Shiho impersonates in Private Actress is a girl but later it turns out he is a boy, much to Shiho's shock.)
  • Hitomi (Shizuki and Ichinose)
  • Hotaru (Tomoe and Futaba are female, the Mortal Kombat: Deception character and Tachibana (the latter is a Bifauxnen) are male)
  • Iori (Minase, Izumi, and Yagami)
  • Itsuki (Koizumi, Minami - shortened to Ikki - , Yamagami, and Myoudouin — the latter's unisex name and androgynous appearance became a large point of contention in the fandom until she was revealed as a very boyish-looking girl.)
  • Jun ("the Swan", Fukuyama, Misugi, Kazama)
  • Kaede (mostly used for females, although the hero of The Last Blade and Rukawa stand out as rare exceptions).
  • Kai
  • Kaoru/Kaworu/Kahoru (Nagisa, Genji, Fujiwara no -, a Shout-Out to the previous, Kamiya, Akashi, Kiryuu, the donut man, Hanabishi or Honjo, Shiba, Matsubara, and Saga,Asahina,no known surname, but a guy who sells donuts)
  • Kazuki (usually rather masculine, neutral-leaning-on-feminine depending on the kanji)
  • Kei (Kusanagi, Odagiri - Ukyo Tachibana's love interest, Kurono (male) and Kishimoto (female) in the same series)
  • Mako (Mori and Iwamatsu)
  • Makoto (Nagano, Mizuhara, Kino, Itou, Konno, Kikuchi, Kenzaki, Naegi, Tachibana, Sawatari, Kubo, Nanaya, Niijima, Date, Soda)
  • Megumi (Hanajima, Hayashibara, Ogata, Kitaniji, and Nakajima,Aino)
  • Michiru (Nishikiori, Kaiou, Kiryuu or Hanaten)
  • Mieko
  • Minato (Namikaze, the 4th Hokage, Sakai, or Nagase)
  • Misaki (Takahashi)
  • Mitsuru (Sano, Kirijo)
  • Mizuki (Male in Naruto, female in School Rumble, Himeji)
  • Nagi (Homura/dai Artai is male, Sanzen'in and the one known as Chrome are female)
  • Nagisa (Shirai and Misumi or Furukawa or Hazuki or Aoi or Shiota.)
  • Natsu (Dragneel/Dragion, the Soulcalibur V character Tanimoto, #72, Hirota and Ayuhara)
  • Ouka (Ouka from Flame of Recca is male while Ouka from .Hack//Legend of the Twilight is female - also, Hayasaka, Nagisa)
  • Sakura (Kusakabe, Kinomoto, Kasugano, Haruno, Tsuitei, and Cobain)
  • Setsuna (Sakurazaki, Kiyoura, Meioh, Kai, Higashi)
  • Shigure Kosaka, Komai are female while Kitami,Takimi and Sohma are male.
  • Shiki (Ryougi (girl (with a male split personality), Tohno (guy), Misaki (girl), Black Cat female in manga, male in anime )
  • Shino (Aburame is Male, Kuribayashi is Female)
  • Shinobu (Maehara, Sensui, Takatsuki, Kawajiri)
  • Shion (Sonozaki, and the original Aries saint - as if The Dragon from The King of Fighters XI weren't gender-ambiguous enough by looks...)
  • Shizuka (typically female, but Doumeki Shizuka is male)
  • Subaru (either Sumeragi or Nakajima)
  • Taiga (Aisaka, Kagami, and Hanaya)
  • Tohru (Honda, Adachi, or Mutsuki, with the bonus that the latter is a Transgender man)
  • Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, Yayoi or the Reporter and the of the Shun Shun Rikka
  • Tsubasa (the real name of both protagonists, male and female, in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-. Also, Kazanari, Katsuki (female)) / Oozora Yuunagi (male), and Ozu (male)
  • Tsukasa (The ambiguity is lampshaded early in .hack//SIGN, as it can also be a surname. One kanji with this pronunciation can be used as both a girl's (Hiiragi), AND a guy's (Domyoji, Kadoya) name.
  • Yuki (Maeda, Nagato, Sohma)
    • For males, it's usually spelled "Yuuki," meaning courage, as opposed to "Yuki" = snow. (Example: Terumi) This is not always the case, though. (And there are certainly girls named Yuuki.)
  • Yuu (Nishinoya, Kashima, or Narukami, with the latter's name usually spelt with one "u" only)
• Swedish:
  • Kim
  • Robin/Robyn
• Arabic:
  • Almas
  • Duha
  • Hikmat
  • Ihsan
  • Ismat
  • Jinan
  • Karam
  • Nima
  • Nur
  • Samir
• Sikh:
  • Most of them, such as Harpreet, Inderpal. You can tell a person's gender by whether they have a Singh (male) or Kaur (female) as their middle name or surname.
• Brazilian Portuguese: Because in Brazil everyone can name their offspring any wanted name. This may lead to confusion in case of amerindian-language-origin names, such as Darcy and Jacy (Moon).
  • Darcy
  • Ivanir
  • Iranir
  • Jacy
• In Polish the noun usually have clearly denoted gender by ending but there is one exception
  • Maria (eng. Mary) as second name
• Vietnamese
  • Anh (most have middle name in addition to Anh)
  • Hồng
  • Kim
  • Phương
  • Tú

• Fiction
  • The webcomic Yang Child has an interesting take on this.
  • Many names in Dwarf Fortress are gender-neutral, and the dwarf who made the name "Urist McDwarf" memetic was female.
  • Tedd from El Goonish Shive averts this but given his frequent Gender Benders his father wonders if he should have picked a gender-neutral name when Tedd was born.

Homophones

(some of these may not be homophones in certain accents)

• Aaron and Erin (in accents with the Mary-marry-merry merger)
• Adrian and Adrienne (in some dialects of English, slightly more distinct in French)
• André and Andrée (in French)
• Armel and Armelle (in French)
• Bela and Bella
• Carey/Cary and Carrie (in accents with the Mary-marry-merry merger)
• Carroll and Carol
• Claire and Clare, leading to the male character in Baccano! having the feminine spelling of the name, while the female protagonists of Claymore uses the masculine spelling. In Fleabag, the unnamed protagonist’s sister Claire dates a man named Clare.
• Daniel and Danièle (in French) and Danielle (in English)
• Don and Dawn (in accents with the cot-caught merger)
• Elisha and Alicia (averted if the former is pronounced like Elijah)
• Emmanuel and Emmanuelle
• Eve and Yves
• Francis and Frances
• Frédéric and Frédérique (in French)
• Gabriel and Gabrièle (in French) and Gabrielle (in English)
• Gene and Jean (in English)
• Not really a homophone, but people from South Germany are prone to assume the Frisian "Hauke" (a form of "Hugo") to be female, by a blend of the female "Heike" and "Frauke". Theodor Storm rotates in his grave...
• Ivan (Russian) and Yvonne/Ivonne (in English accents with the father-bother merger)
• Joe and Jo
• John and Jeanne (in English)
• Karol (Polish) and Carol (English) / Carole (French)
  • Of course, Karol (as in Karol Wojtyła, later known as Pope John Paul II) is the Polish version of Carol/Charles, just as Karel (as in playwright Karel Čapek) is the Czech version.
• Lee and Leigh
• Leslie and Lesley
• Michel and Michèle (in French) and Michelle (in English)
• Vivian and Vivien/Vivienne (in English), Vivien and Vivienne (in French)
• Pascale and Pascal (in French)
• Peter and Peta (in non-rhotic accents)
  • A woman (think she's a dress designer) in NZ is named Peter.
• Natan and Natane. The former is primarily male, the latter is primarily female.
• Noël and Noëlle, in French.
  • The name Noel is sometimes pronounced in English to rhyme with Joel.
• Randy and Randi.
• René and Renée (in both French and English)
• Seán/Shaun/Shawn/Siôn and Siân (in accents that have both the father-bother and cot-caught mergers)
• Valer(i)y/Valerie: The former is a masculine Russian name.
• Virtually any male name (or nickname) ending with "-y" (Bobby, Andy, Teddy, Tony, Danny, Johnny, Ricky) can become feminine by spelling it "-i" or "-ie".
  • And Sandy is the reverse, as it's normally short for Cassandra (see above) but can also be used as a male name on its own, or as a shortening of Alexander.
  • Names that don't end this way can change, too (Scott->Scottie)

Titles

• Dragon Age is weird on this trope, since there's several gender neutral titles - "ser", "serah" etc. - that would seem to convey a gender, but they're actually gender neutral In-Universe, as are more formal titles such as "viscount".
• It was kicking around the Star Wars Expanded Universe before, but BioWare codified it; "Lord of the Sith" is gender-neutral, as a Player Character Sith is always called "Lord." They also confirmed past reasonable doubt that "Mandalore" is also gender neutral, With Shae Vizala taking the title "Mandalore the Avenger".
• Dr. J. Langer [Jenny], from the film The Giant Spider Invasion, which was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. This lead to a painful sequence where the character who came to see her kept assuming "Dr. Langer" was a male relative, to which Servo quipped, "Humor of the 1840s!"
  • A book about sci-fi B Movies said this was a virtual cliche of the genre, even in movies which didn't have a Samus Is a Girl scene. They might have simply been copying from Them!! which has a female scientist with a male first name.
• When James Bond first meets Dr. Goodhead [Holly] in Moonraker, his reaction is a surprised "A woman!" Her response is quick and sarcastic. Note that by this point (in 1979), Bond has met any number of capable women in positions of (relative) power. Humor of the 1840s, indeed.
  • Just goes to show you how Genre Blind Mr. Bond can be.
• An episode of All in the Family revolved around the following puzzle: "A young man is seriously injured in a car accident. When he's taken to the hospital, the surgeon cries, 'I can't operate on this man! He's my son!' Yet the surgeon is not the young man's father. How can this be?" It took the entire half hour for the characters to figure it out (the surgeon was his mother), and when the answer was finally given at the end of the show the live studio audience gasped in surprise. 1840s indeed.
  • Same riddle was used on The Cosby Show, you know the one with a the wife character being a powerful attorney. Sadly this puzzle still continues to work nowadays.
• In Metal Gear Solid, Naomi assumes reclusive genius Dr. Clark was a man. It's not until Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots that we learn it was Para-Medic, a female character that was introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. This was, of course, a retcon.
• In an episode of Get Smart, Max meets up with an invisible doctor. Knowing that there are KAOS agents guarding the entrance to the restaurant where they met, Max and the doctor have to sneak out another way. Max suggests sneaking out through the men's room, when finally the doctor says that that won't work... In a woman's voice.
• Hellsing: Sir Integra is a woman. A very scary woman who will kill you at a moments notice and a knight of the Queen of England. Usually when females are knighted, their title is "Dame", i.e. "Dame Integra". Another page on This Very Wiki states that she's legally a man as a requirement for holding her position, so "Dame Integra" would therefore be legally incorrect, or the the writer did not understand the British peerage system and used 'Sir' since it is more common for government officials.
• The Tentei or "Heavenly Emperor" in Fist of the North Star is actually Lin's twin sister, Lui.
• In Educomix, Ma'am, Madam, Lady, etc. are all men with no face.
• The great spirit Lord Maxwell in Tales of Xillia, who chooses an attractive female body to manifest in. It turns out Milla Maxwell is actually entirely female, it's just humanity having used her title and surname for so long that detail slipped the collective consciousness. Helpfully, it goes a long way in keeping her incognito despite how... loud her body is. This is Double Subverted as first Milla turns out to be a decoy not the real Maxwell (who is male and has a long beard) and then in the end she does become Maxwell and still is referred to as Lord Maxwell.
• This is likely the reason the writers of Star Trek: Voyager saw fit to name their captain "Janeway"; even though it's a last name, it immediately registers as female, preempting any possible confusion.
• Magic: The Gathering mostly abandoned gender-specific titles in the 2000s. On some level, this makes sense, since a creature with "sorcerer" in its name can be depicted as male or female while a "sorceress" can only be a female, so it gives the artists more flexibility if the card is reprinted later with different art. However, they also do this frequently with unique characters (for instance, Nylea, God of the Hunt is a woman). They make an exception for "enchantress," since the term has a lot of history within the game.
• In Neighbors, Kelly believed that the Dean's actual name was Dean rather than her job title. This is due to her being an Australian and being unfamiliar with the term (although Australian and other Commonwealth universities do use the term, usually at a level below the Chancellors that Kelly mentions).
• On Dan Vs., Dan has a Formally-Named Pet called Mr. Mumbles, who retains that name even after Dan learns that "he" is really a female.
• Military: It varies. Sometimes you also shall call the "Ma'am" "Sir".

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