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Giving Anne Rice and Ann Dunham as examples is a bit unfair because there are all sorts of examples of women given traditionally masculine names who do go by them in everyday life. Many of them are actually going by their middle names -- Reese Witherspoon, who is Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon on her birth certificate, actually goes by her second middle name. And in the American South, where Witherspoon is from, you don't have to limit yourself to famous examples. I went to high school in Lynchburg, Virginia with three young women who were Elizabeth Winston, Barbara Michael, and Barbara Quentin on their birth certificates, and who were always called Winston, Michael, and Quentin. (Oh, and they were all in my graduating class, so they are all 70 now, no longer young!)

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Sexism means that it has been common in English speaking countries for girls to be given formerly masculine names, while nearly unheard of for boys to be given formerly feminine ones. That's led to there being scores of names which were originally "male" which are now seen as "female", from Hilary to Shirley to Ashley to Reese. Seems a bit unfair to me -- perhaps we should be thinking of traditionally female names that would work well for sons to balance things out. And Iris sort of does have a sound to me that might work as a masculine name in 2022.

This message was edited 5/2/2022, 9:01 AM