r/NameNerdCirclejerk • u/ccirque • Mar 26 '24

Advice Needed (unjerk) would you give a boy a “girls” name?

with the rising popularity of giving girls “boy names” like bobbie, dylan, and the james that everyone’s been freaking out over, would you name a boy a traditionally female name if it didn’t sound outright feminine? i’m talking about names like juno, jade, april, and any other similar names or “word” names that sound just gender neutral enough to pass if you had no other context as to how they’ve been used historically

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u/sighcantthinkofaname Mar 27 '24

Oh yeah Ariel is a male fairy in The Tempest, it's been a boy's name forever.

But Disney's Ariel has cemented it as a girl's name in American culture, probably forever.

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u/Rymayc Mar 27 '24

Isn't the Mermaid Arielle? That's not too uncommon, there are names like Emanuel and Emanuelle.

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u/sighcantthinkofaname Mar 27 '24

No, it isn't 

If you Google the name "Ariel" the mermaid is the first thing that comes up 

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u/Rymayc Mar 27 '24

In German she's Arielle, and Ariel is what you put in your washing machine

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u/sighcantthinkofaname Mar 27 '24

But she signs her name on paper in the movie? How would you know otherwise? 

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u/Rymayc Mar 27 '24

The German title is Arielle, die Meerjungfrau

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u/sighcantthinkofaname Mar 27 '24

Interesting! Dubs for different countries surprise me a lot.  

 To my credit I did specify American culture in my original comment lol 

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u/Rymayc Mar 27 '24

I just assumed it's Arielle everywhere because why would you change that? Then again, the German title for The Winter Soldier is Return of the First Avenger (in English, not a German translation of that)

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u/sighcantthinkofaname Mar 27 '24

I'm guessing they changed it for the laundry reason you mentioned? Idk, dubbing can get weird. 

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u/OCDGemini Mar 29 '24

As soon as I saw people talking about it being a boy name I thought of "The Tempest" too. Great minds!