gender-busting given names

Question

 SUGGESTIONS suggested that Ruth H. Wright who married Annie May Campbell (d/o Mary Malissa Elizabeth Medlock, d/o of Charles Medlock & Malissa O.C. Huffman) was the wrong gender. They had five children together, so ... 

ANY male with a traditionally female name, or any female with a traditionally male name (and i have instances of both types) is going to be "tagged" by Editbot I am supposing, if not some marathon participant and there's no provision in the template for creating a profile that says "definitely (whatever the gender)" because such incidence in the whole WT is very minute, I'm thinking, the quantity not even registering as a percentage of the whole. It just doesn't happen all that often with gender-busting given names. I've only seen maybe a half-dozen myself. 

Still, being informed of a gender-busting given name is a change from being questioned about unique spelling. And I'm not even counting anymore how many times that has happened. People might thing celebs are "creative" or "over the top" on naming their children, but when you've dealt with the profiles I've created, you KNOW parents can become -- every now and then -- very creative about naming children at least since 1700's 

At any rate I pointed out to Suggestions the gender was correct as stated. Actually, I think I named it a false suggestion and said to bury it forever. But we shall see what happens now ... 

Comments

I work with a gentleman with the first name of Jan.

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In Scandinavia, Jan is a very common male name.

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EditBot doesn't know the traditional gender associations of names. Rather, EditBot classifies given names by gender based on the statistics of the names that EditBot has seen. Names that like Jan won't get tagged because EditBot has seen substantial numbers of both men and women with that name. But men named Ruth get tagged because EditBot's experience indicates that Ruth is a female name. If Ruth is a man, then "false suggestion" is the correct choice.

Answer 1

I've seen lots of men with names one would think should be "female." Hazel Council (a male realtor in a town near where I grew up), Bonnie Williams, (a now-deceased male friend), and Caroll O'Connor (the actor) come immediately to my mind, but I'm sure there are myriad others. Just this weekend I was researching a branch of my own family and realized, when transcribing a census record, that what I'd thought was the name "Jane Cornelia" (a female) was actually "James Cornelia." She must have been named after her father, James Southall! I actually found another record to substantiate that her first name was James not Jane--a death record for one of her children. So, I'm learning--no gender-assumptions based on names and no name-assumptions based on gender.

Comments

Marion Morrison (aka John Wayne) always comes to mind.

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Funny you should mention the name Marion, Melanie. My husband's name is Marion. He is named for his grandfather, Francis Marion Mobley, who was named after Francis Marion, the legendary "Swamp Fox." Marion is a name frequently bestowed on South Carolina male children. My husband does get a bit perturbed that so many people assume he is a "Mrs" because of his first name.

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Just tell him "some people are stupid", and remind him of the word assume.  (I've known people assume P D James was male, just because of the genre of writing, plus use of initials.)

When we record females named Wallace, and males named Evelyn, and there are well known persons such as Glenn Close, why should anyone be surprised that there are names that can be either sex?  Just because there are different spellings for males and females for some names, it is not/was not always so.  I have a niece Stacey (supposedly the "feminine" form of Stacie/Stacy).  There's at least one male actor named Stacy.  The famous (or, at least, he used to be) writer Evelyn Waugh.  Names such as Ashley/Ashleigh, Leigh/Lee, Lesley/Leslie, Alison/Allison, Vivian/Vivien, Beverly/Beverley, Anne/Annie, Lindsay/Lindsey, Joyce, Meredith, and more, have always been either/or. 

Some such names, too, have been markedly male for a number of generations, then switched to being female for generations. 

Names that come from surnames can be male or female, but some will always try to "force" them to be one or the other.  At least we're more open to the possibilities!  :)

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Stanley Ann Dunham (Dunham-4) is named after her father Stanley.  She is the mother of a past President of the United States (still living).

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Marion/Marian can be either gender depending where the parents come from.

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Traditionally, in some circles anyways, Marion is a male name and Marian is female (one can think of it as Mario and Maria with an 'n' added to remember which is which). However, plenty of people didn't/don't know about the traditional difference and therefore didn't follow it (or maybe didn't on purpose?).

My great-grandmother was named Marian, and I've seen documents spelling it both ways.

A similar scenario exists for Francis and Frances. One can think of the names Francisco and Francesca to remember the traditional difference... but if one's ancestors parents didn't know the difference - or if some of their record-takers didn't... then you can easily have someone with a named spelled as if for the opposite sex.

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Maybe, but in some countries in Europe Marian is typically male. Something I came across often whilst working in government social services department in Australia. There are a huge number of immigrants from many countries and it was very interesting to see the males called Florence, Beverly, Vivian and such.

In England Marian was popular amongst Catholics, but not favoured by others.

I am Marion partly because mum wanted a French name and dad wanted Maryon (after Sir Maryon Wilson once chief superintendent of Scotland Yard). So lose - lose for this girl!

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The 'some circles' I mentioned do seem to be primarily Anglo-American. And inconsistent even there.

Answer 2

If the gender is correct and you have a source to prove it, mark the suggestion false. If you do not mark it false, it will just keep showing up in suggestions.

Comments

Well, of COURSE, Deb. Not a problem. 

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Just mentioning proof because there could be many reasons why the gender is wrong even though the profile may show children with a spouse of the opposite gender. The name could have been entered incorrectly. The name could have been edited and inadvertently changed. The profile may be incorrectly attached to the spouse. Just make sure it's really false before you nark it that way. I'm sure you're careful, but I always speak to the crowd quietly reading without comment. 

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 Yes, indeed, I've run into every one of those you mention, and it do get difficult with some of them, but I figure consistency over a quantity of records over the span of their lives removes doubts but the name given is one of the assertions you make about the person in creating the profile and needs as much supporting evidence as any of the other assertions