The 50s Were a Gas, Daddy-O, Part 2

Last time we looked at names that have been added/removed from the SSA lists since 1953, but this time we'll be looking at gender changes.

Firstly, here are the names that changed from boy --> girl most strongly, from the 2018 Top 1500:

1. Aubrey
2. Riley
3. Emory
4. Monroe
5. Emery
6. Emerson
7. Mckinley
8. Taylor
9. Raleigh
10. Merritt
11. Harley
12. Collins
13. Reese
14. Stevie
15. Palmer
16. Madison
17. Leighton
18. Addison
19. Kendall
20. Bailey

Because I calculated using percentages, the lists are weighted toward popular names. As you can guess, none of these names were particularly common in 1953 for boys, but they became comparatively very popular for girls by 2018. Aubrey was the most popular in 1953, given to 348 boys (making it #369 on the SSA charts) and zero girls; in 2018 it was given to 5190 girls and 156 boys.
Also, only 3 of these names actually appeared for girls in 1953: Kendall (7 girls), Harley, and Stevie (5 girls each).

Onto the names that have shifted most strongly from boy --> unisex, but are still more common on boys:

1. Spencer
2. Elliott
3. August
4. Elliot
5. Ryan
6. Denver
7. Royal
8. Murphy
9. Parker
10. Milan
11. Ellis
12. Logan
13. Reece
14. Blake
15. Hayden
16. Drew
17. Jordan
18. Chandler
19. Ira
20. Joey

So Ira, the most common of these in 1953, went from a ratio of about 15 boys to every girl to about 3 boys to every 2 girls.


It's a much smaller selection, but there are a few names that were more feminine in 1953 that shifted to more masculine:

1. Devon
2. Dominique
3. Ollie

Yep. that's it! I was pretty surprised to see Devon especially, but it was given to 56 girls and 42 boys in 1953. Not popular for either, but marginally more common for girls. :)
Ollie likely appears because of the trend of giving masculine nicknames as full girls' names (no, that's definitely not a new thing at all!); Dominique because it's unisex (and more common for boys) in its original French.

There were also exactly 3 names that went from more feminine --> more unisex:

1. Alexis
2. Jamie
3. Robin

Alexis especially is probably a surprise because it's not what we think of as a 50s name, but it did enter the Top 1000 for girls in the mid-40s, nearly 2 decades before it appeared in the boys' Top 1000. Since its peak in the 90s, it's dropped off quite a lot for girls, while for boys (mostly due to Spanish, I imagine), it's been more stable. It was used on about 8 girls to every one boy in 1953, but in 2018 was only more popular by a ratio of about 5 girls to every 2 boys.
Robin and Jamie also had quietly overtaken the boys decades before their respective popularity spikes in the 60s and 70s, and have since also declined much more rapidly for girls than for boys.