MetaChat - Opposite gender name? Your folks ever tell you?

I'd have been Jason. No idea about the middle name.

posted by Stewriffic 05 February | 10:56

I would have been Carl, and I would have been a III!

posted by taz 05 February | 10:59

Sarah.

posted by middleclasstool 05 February | 11:01

I actually got the boy's name. Second choice: Iolanthe.

posted by Specklet 05 February | 11:01

I swear my mom told me when I was a kid that I would have been a "Neil", but when I mentioned it last year she told me that wasn't true. Maybe I made it up in my crazy kid mind.

posted by loiseau 05 February | 11:03

Duncan. Thank the gods for that one.

posted by mygothlaundry 05 February | 11:07

I would have been Danilo. Mom had to wait three more kids before she could finally use it. No one calls him Danilo though, since we live in the States now, and everyone calls him Dan. Mom hates that. We all shortened our names, no one in the States walks around calling people by three to six syllable names. One or two syllables should cover it. WTF naming all your girl children Maria, anyways? Damn Italian Catholics.

posted by msali 05 February | 11:09

Duncan is my mother's maiden name -- it became my brother's middle name so I guess it couldn't have become my first if I was a boy.

posted by loiseau 05 February | 11:16

(I love Duncan as a name - it was on our short list for boy names for Miss Madeleine until I revealed that I had an ex called Duncan :) )

My alternate name was Dylan Michael. Dylan for Dylan Thomas, who I think is a very strange person to name your baby after. Then again, I'm Brigitte for Brigitte Bardot.

posted by gaspode 05 February | 11:20

This all reminds me: I once knew a guy called Brandon, and his mother remarried a man with the last name Brandon. He kept his father's last name, but I always called him Brandon Brandon. We had a friend named Buck Burke. Who names their kid Buck? I also knew a Huckleberry, we called him Huck. And in highschool I knew a Precious and a Lucius (he pronounced it LOO-shus). They dated for a while.

posted by Specklet 05 February | 11:22

Specklet, how else do you pronounce Lucius?

posted by gaspode 05 February | 11:30

I'm not sure, but the way everyone leaned on the first syllable always amused me.

posted by Specklet 05 February | 11:37

no worries specklet, i'm pretty sure i would have been named 'spike xavier' if i had been a boy, after my grandfather. just as 'buck' in my opinion.

posted by eatdonuts 05 February | 11:42

My parents were locked in on Dale for me either way. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it came from Western star Dale Roberston. I was told that as a kid several times, and then years later neither of my parents recall that being true.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 05 February | 11:43

I would have been Jacob. My sister Lee would've been Harry, which we harass her about to no end. Sarah would've been Max.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 05 February | 11:55

I would have been a Morgan. My brother Mason could have* been a Melody.

I think my parents had a thing for "M" names (part of my first name is Megan).

* I think my mother said it was just as well he was a boy because there was no way Melody was going to happen.

posted by gomichild 05 February | 11:59

My alternate name was Dylan Michael. Dylan for Dylan Thomas, who I think is a very strange person to name your baby after. Then again, I'm Brigitte for Brigitte Bardot.

Gaspode! My son's name IS Dylan Michael! He is named after Dylan Thomas! How funny is THAT?!
I just hope he doesn't take after his namesake.

posted by msali 05 February | 12:28

Wendy. I think I would make an awesome Wendy.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 05 February | 12:50

I would have been David Michael Lastname. By the time my younger brother was born, one of our cousins had been named David, so my brother got a different name.

posted by peep 05 February | 12:53

WHOA, msali, that's crazy! (Sorry about calling your naming habits weird :/ )

posted by gaspode 05 February | 13:06

I would have been Adam, which was given to my brother when he came along. The parents hadn't really chosen a girl's name for him.

I thought Lucius was loo-see-us.

posted by brujita 05 February | 13:07

If I had been a girl, my dad wanted to name me Jacklyn but call me "Jack." I kinda like that.

posted by mullacc 05 February | 13:13

I am pretty sure I remember that I would have been a "Laura", which is a lovely, 1970's kinda name.

(mullac, I have a soft spot for girls' names with boyish nicknames. I tried to call Evelyn Veronica, just so I could call her Ronnie. But, she really, really wasn't a Veronica. So, Evelyn it was.)

posted by richat 05 February | 13:22

Mary Jane, which combines the names of both my grandmothers.

Duncan is my partner's last name, and I've considered adopting it as my own last name if we're ever allowed to marry.

posted by BoringPostcards 05 February | 13:33

No probs, Gaspode. I have spent my life being called weird. I have a thick skin, plus I come from a family that isn't afraid to let its nerd-flag fly.

posted by msali 05 February | 13:37

I would have been Frank, and even when they found out I was a girl, my mom considered the name Frankie (my dad veto'd that).

posted by piratebowling 05 February | 13:43

I'd have been Ian.

posted by essexjan 05 February | 13:47

I don't have any for myself, but one of my best friends told me hers. Elric!

posted by halonine 05 February | 13:59

The only alternate name I was ever told was that if I was born on halloween they'd have named me Spooky.

posted by chewatadistance 05 February | 14:05

Simon or Jonathan, which I believe would have qualified me to be 3/5ths of Duran Duran.

posted by evilcupcakes 05 February | 14:05

Kathleen.

posted by terrapin 05 February | 14:06

I'd be Matthew.

posted by wimpdork 05 February | 14:11

I'd be Sally. (If I was a girl)

posted by Marxchivist 05 February | 14:30

Caroline, after my great-grandmother. Makes sense, since I'm a "IV" and therefore named after my great-grandfather (actually, two of them perhaps by a quirk of fate, but I guess Nathaniel used to be a much more popular name).

posted by Eideteker 05 February | 14:47

My mother, for all her flaws, correctly guessed the gender of 6 out of 7 kids. She only missed for my little brother. He would have had the name which eventually went to the first grandchild: Sidse.

posted by trinity8-director 05 February | 15:07

I never had an alternative boys name as my mom set out to get a girl. She planned it and figured out when was a good time to seduce dad for maximum girl-possibilitites. Three days after conceiving she was helping her nine-months pregnant bestest girlfriend with her grocery shopping and suddenly fainted. When she came to, thanks to the managers smelling salts, she explained; "sorry, I'm pregnant". Her girlfriend said "No no, darling I'm the pregnant one! You're confused". But she was pregnant and from that day forward she called the growing bump my name. My brother, who was seven at the time, even had a serious talk with her at one point: "Mom, if it turns out to be a boy, you mustn't be disappointed because you know it could be a boy...."

posted by dabitch 05 February | 15:12

trinity8-director, that's a pretty impressive track and baby record your mom has.

posted by dabitch 05 February | 15:13

Yeah, I actually think Duncan is a nice name now. But when I was a kid I'd never heard it and my immediate association was Donuts and I just thought, ah, god, as bad as it is being Felicity with all the attendant Electricity, Velocity etc., imagine how much worse it would be to forever be known as Duncan Donuts.

posted by mygothlaundry 05 February | 15:24

Girl name: Jessica

posted by jason's_planet 05 February | 15:48

Loren Frederick. I'm happy with the way things turned out.

posted by Orange Swan 05 February | 15:53

My brother wanted a little brother. Instead, he got me.

He wanted to call me Dave.

posted by sperose 05 February | 16:17

Mum was certain I was a girl (after three boys) and never picked a boy's name. Other options were Rebecca but that was picked for a cousin just older than I so it was tossed out. My sperm donor and his mother wanted Dawn a female version of his name. Thank dog that didn't happen, because I swear I would have changed it as soon as I turned 18.

posted by deborah 05 February | 17:00

My mother never believed she would have boys, but both times the doctors told her that she likely would. So despite having had my sister's name and mine picked out long ago (she and my father had also pledged to only have two children, at least if they could help it), she and Dad decided on Justin Davis Last-Name for what turned out to be my sister Sarah, and Benjamin Banning Last-Name for me. When I was little and was less appreciative of my ancestors, I was horrified by this close call.

posted by notquitemaryann 05 February | 17:13

I would have been Brian. My husband would have been Jennifer, which is my name.

posted by desjardins 05 February | 17:53

My parents were so convinced I was a boy that they had started referring to me by that name before I was born. All the birth-announcement phone calls started with "Charlie's a girl!!!"

I've heard that story a near-infinite number of times. :)

posted by heatherann 05 February | 19:00

Everyone was convinced I'd be a boy, too. All I had were boy clothes for the first year or so.

I think my name would have been José. That's my brother. He was convinced his first child would be a girl, so they never chose a boy name. When the boy popped out, they were so rattled he got three names.

posted by lysdexic 06 February | 12:52

05 February 2009