Reclaiming Ashley as a boy's name

[Richmondbread]

ASHLEY was once a name for boys- almost exclusively. It's hard for people to wrap their heads around this!

Since the 1980s or so, it was taken over for girls, so much so, that any boy today named Ashley would get bullied. But I wonder why so many other great male names have been taken over by females as well? Could we ever reclaim Ashley ? Growing up in the 1990s, I only knew ONE boy named Ashley. The rest were all girls. That is a shame. I actually hate it for a female name. It sounds almost annoying, but it sounds kind of cool and debonair for a male.

[Creoda]

It's nearly always Ashleigh for girls not Ashley, at least in Australia.

No big loss anyway. Not like it's a traditional given name.

[Nurzat]

what's with the bully culture in the US? in school there were always some kids with unusual names, either blatantly foreign ones or religious ones from the Orthodox calendar, both sounded somehow weird as first names, but other than some innocent jokes around them and made even by the kids bearing them, no bullying, taunts or mean laughing at them ever happened - this is a phenomenon I haven't witnessed at all in all of my schooling. I've heard it's becoming an issue nowadays in Romania, so I wonder if it came with the American/Western influence in the popular culture. school bullying is featured at least episodically in many American films and often in a supposedly funny way, almost legitimizing it, a signal which our kids now take up and replicate in their schools - after 3 decades of such movies, it might have been what generated this wave of bullies in our schools. gtfo American teenage films!

[NSXD60]

Shudder the thought that Ashley Wilkes is gone with the wind!

[Jansob]

This is a weird question..why do you care? Names go in and out of fashion, and become more associated with one gender or another and then swing back. It's a natural change and you can't force it. Evelyn was also a male name for some time, but is currently a female name. It's not something that you can just decide to bring back.

[Mingle]

what's with the bully culture in the US? in school there were always some kids with unusual names, either blatantly foreign ones or religious ones from the Orthodox calendar, both sounded somehow weird as first names, but other than some innocent jokes around them and made even by the kids bearing them, no bullying, taunts or mean laughing at them ever happened - this is a phenomenon I haven't witnessed at all in all of my schooling. I've heard it's becoming an issue nowadays in Romania, so I wonder if it came with the American/Western influence in the popular culture. school bullying is featured at least episodically in many American films and often in a supposedly funny way, almost legitimizing it, a signal which our kids now take up and replicate in their schools - after 3 decades of such movies, it might have been what generated this wave of bullies in our schools. gtfo American teenage films!

I heard of Germans getting bullied in schools in the Netherlands cause of being German and there's barely any difference between the two. And if you check the bullying threads here, many non-American users said they experienced bullying. In American schools, I've personally never seen it happening.

[BakersfieldChimp]

It's nearly always Ashleigh for girls not Ashley, at least in Australia.

No big loss anyway. Not like it's a traditional given name.

Except it is disrespectful to the women who are actually named Ashleigh or Ashley.

[BakersfieldChimp]

There is always this as well.


https://nameberry.com/b/girl-baby-name-meade

[Hyena]

There is always this as well.


https://nameberry.com/b/girl-baby-name-meade

Oh no! Do you mean to tell me that, in addition to being named after an alcoholic beverage, and a Union Civll War hero, meade also has a girl's name?

[Nurzat]

I heard of Germans getting bullied in schools in the Netherlands cause of being German and there's barely any difference between the two. And if you check the bullying threads here, many non-American users said they experienced bullying. In American schools, I've personally never seen it happening.

but no other film industry is featuring it so prominently and normalizing it as the Murican one - which is also watched by everyone, because average people have such a bad taste in film and music