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Surnames used on girls are sometimes because it is a famous females surname (Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Kelly, Grace Kelly.
Or a famous female chooses to go by her mothers maiden name. (Harper, Harper Lee, real name Nelle, Reese, Reese Witherspoon, real name Laura). So why else would a masculine surname on a girl?
These names are too common on girls!
Eileen, forever
Or a famous female chooses to go by her mothers maiden name. (Harper, Harper Lee, real name Nelle, Reese, Reese Witherspoon, real name Laura). So why else would a masculine surname on a girl?
These names are too common on girls!
Eileen, forever
This message was edited 6/13/2016, 12:42 PM
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Replies
Your examples seem correct, but there's another factor—in many peer groups, you just don't use first names except for intimate acquaintances. Male or female you refer to to people by surname alone. Miss Justine Taylor will be called "Miss Taylor" by first acquaintances, "Taylor" by those she knows well, and "Justine" only by family and intimate friends, and the latter may only do so privately. In these situations casual observers can easily mistake "Taylor" for a personal and not a family name, and precedent is a frequent enabler of further use as such.
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Originally English speakers only used surnames a a first or middle names to honour specific people (usually a relative, but also a godparent or a famous person they admired). Eventually some of these names became "normal". Other people stared copying them either because they wanted to honour that person (e.g. "Montgomery Smith", named after his mother's maiden name, is godfather to a baby Montgomery), or they just used the name because they liked it, regardless of the original namesake(s). ). If you read 19th century English novels, you have many examples of this!
Many of the surnames used on girls are used because they look or sound feminine (especially if they end in -ey or -ly) or because they allow for feminine nicknames (Madison, Emerson, Addison > Maddie, Emmie, Addie; but people don't name their daughters Jackson or Jefferson!). Also sometimes a surname is similar to an already existing feminine name (e.g. Reese can be short for Therese; Kelly can be short for Cornelia / Raquel).
Moreover, it is a relatively common phenomenon in the USA to give girls masculine names. If people feel comfortable naming their daughters Alexis, it's no big deal to name them Rylie or Mackenzie.
A positive consequence, of course, is that sometimes this causes for feminine medieval names that only survived as surnames to be used on girls again. Ellery, Aubrey, Emmett, Averill were feminine names in Mediaeval England. (And names like Julian, Christian, Bennett and James were used for both genders).
Many of the surnames used on girls are used because they look or sound feminine (especially if they end in -ey or -ly) or because they allow for feminine nicknames (Madison, Emerson, Addison > Maddie, Emmie, Addie; but people don't name their daughters Jackson or Jefferson!). Also sometimes a surname is similar to an already existing feminine name (e.g. Reese can be short for Therese; Kelly can be short for Cornelia / Raquel).
Moreover, it is a relatively common phenomenon in the USA to give girls masculine names. If people feel comfortable naming their daughters Alexis, it's no big deal to name them Rylie or Mackenzie.
A positive consequence, of course, is that sometimes this causes for feminine medieval names that only survived as surnames to be used on girls again. Ellery, Aubrey, Emmett, Averill were feminine names in Mediaeval England. (And names like Julian, Christian, Bennett and James were used for both genders).
This message was edited 6/13/2016, 2:10 PM
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Adding to what Dawn said...
Elea from British Baby Names wrote a post about Aubrey 2 years ago, which can be seen here:
http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2014/04/aubrey.html
Elea from British Baby Names wrote a post about Aubrey 2 years ago, which can be seen here:
http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2014/04/aubrey.html
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She's mostly right, but makes one common error. -rada in Burgundian Alberada is not the feminine of reda "council, advice" OHG rat, Burgundian reda, later rida, but rather an original feminine rada "raid, riding", part of a broad class of name elements with expeditionary themes (feminine names are frequently martial, if only because martial nouns are frequently feminine). Only later and as "rada" and it's variants drop out of common prosaic use (even raid was reintroduced by Walter Scott, the original English word became road) does it become assimilated to masculine reda.
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I won't call Dawn's opinion a common error.
In fact, the Germanic stem *raidō "to ride" has developped a monophthongal long a sound in Old English only, the High German cognates exhibit an ei diphthong. It seems far-fetched to assume Old English sounds for something like Burgundian at the Southern fringe of the Germanic speaking region.
In fact, the Germanic stem *raidō "to ride" has developped a monophthongal long a sound in Old English only, the High German cognates exhibit an ei diphthong. It seems far-fetched to assume Old English sounds for something like Burgundian at the Southern fringe of the Germanic speaking region.
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First, it's not Dawn's opinion, it's the source she quotes. Second Burgundian is not OHG, and does not exhibit the same spelling conventions in the recorded words, e.g. Burgundian "réda" where in the north we have LG "rad" and HG "rat" for "council". This places Burgundian with Gothic in preserving "Indo-Germanic" é, where in English we have ǽ and elsewhere á, as in High German. It is a mistake to think that Germanic languages and names in the south follow High German conventions. Frankish is more akin to Low German, Burgundian and Lombard show affinities with Gothic (e.g. preserving "ai" where High German has "ei"). But you're right, connecting Burgundian "rada" to English "rad" goes too far. But again, if Burgundian preserves the é of "réda", "rada" is not simply the feminine. Similarly, the feminine of High German rat, will not be rada. It would still be "rat". Forstemann, who doesn't distinguish between lombard, saxon, burgundian, frankish and OHG, doesn't help matters.
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Actually, I have to add, we DO have continental "a" for High German "ei" in names such as Hamo and Hama, also recorded as Haima, Haimo, as well as the High Germ Heim, OE Hám- . It may not definitively explain feminine Burgundian "rada", but it's no stretch to expect that if we have hám for haim in continental names, not just English, then we should also have rád for raid, and even Forstemann lists Herireit, Sigirait, and several names in Raid-, Rait- and Reid-, so "raid" as a feminine name element is documented. He even accepts á for ai as a regular variant for other name elements, so surely feminine -rád, "raid" should be assumed over a purely conjectural feminization of otherwise masculine réd, rád "council".
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