I have been thinking about two NFL players recently: Jason Kelce and Matthew Stafford. Kelce has three daughters: Wyatt, Elliott, and Bennett. Stafford has four daughters: Chandler, Sawyer, Hunter and Tyler. If you look at their social media posts announcing the names, you will be hard pressed to find anyone acknowledging that this is weird, 95% of people don’t bat an eye. Can you imagine an NFL player, or anyone for that matter, having four sons named Chelsea, Sydney, Hailey, and Tracy? People would consider that child abuse.
I understand that some of these names are more so surnames than they are traditional male given names, but the point still stands, and besides, almost any traditional male given name you can think of is also being used for girls nowadays (see: the James as a middle name for girls trend, when Jane is right there!)
In no way am I pro the enforcement of gender roles, quite the opposite, and that is why I think this phenomenon is bothersome. It is often said that “gender bending” is the in naming trend, when in reality, it only ever goes one way. Boy names for girls are described as “cool”, (because maleness is cool), but girl names on boys are universally understood to be, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, cruel. A boy having to bear a female name would be humiliating to him, (because femininity is embarrassing). I don’t know, to me, the trend just reeks of “cheering a little too loudly when the gender reveal is blue” vibes. What do you think?
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