{"id":10701,"date":"2014-12-03T09:49:51","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T13:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10701"},"modified":"2014-12-03T10:37:01","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T14:37:01","slug":"baby-naming-issue-a-sibling-for-a-boy-named-sage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/12\/03\/baby-naming-issue-a-sibling-for-a-boy-named-sage\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: A Sibling for a Boy Named Sage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I have a question concerning using unisex names for siblings, and would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.<\/p>\n

My husband and I love unisex and word names. For our first child, a boy born last year, we chose the name Sage. We would have used this name on a boy or girl, it fits him perfectly and we are very happy with it. We had checked the Social Security statistics and decided that the name was only slightly more popular for girls, so we still considered it a \u201ctrue unisex\u201d name. Within the last year, however, I was surprised to see most people assuming Sage to be a girl\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re getting mentally ready for our second child now. Another name we both love is the name Quinn. Statistically, it seems to be comparable to Sage in that it is slightly more popular for girls, yet still considered a “true unisex” name. My questions are the following:<\/p>\n

If we were to have a girl this time around, could we use a similarly unisex-yet-slightly-more-female name for her, given that we\u2019ve used one on a boy the first time around? Or would that be too confusing, perhaps even resulting in even more people assuming our first-born is also a girl? If we have one child with a unisex name that is slightly more used for the opposite gender, would you recommend giving the next child a less gender-ambiguous name?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also wondering if it would be a good idea to use Quinn on a boy, since that would mean we\u2019d have two boys with names that are slightly more popular for girls.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much!
\nVee<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

My favorite is for all the children of a particular sex in a sibling group to have similarly unisex names. Confusion will occur no matter what with unisex names (the ambiguity is an unavoidable part of the package, and\/or a large part of the appeal of such names), but my own preference is to avoid clashes, mixed messages, and anything that sends people’s eyebrows up in a “What happened THERE?” manner.<\/p>\n

So for me, Sage and Quinn is exactly the approach that most appeals. In 2013, the name Sage was used for 660 new baby girls and 316 new baby boys: about twice as many girls as boys. That same year, the name Quinn was used for 2,634 new baby girls and 875 new baby boys: about three times as many girls as boys. Both names are unisex, currently used more often for girls, so I think they coordinate beautifully for either a pair of brothers or a pair of sisters.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I’d use the word “slightly,” however, to describe the girl\/boy usage gap: both names are used quite a bit more often for girls. I think you can expect confusion at approximately the ratio of current usage: that is, since Sage is used for twice as many girls as boys, I think you can expect about twice as many people to assume it’s a girl name; since Quinn is used for three times as many girls as boys, I think you can expect about three times as many people to assume it’s a girl name.<\/p>\n

For a girl, you can use a unisex name or not, as you’d prefer: it’s common for parents to have different styles for girl names and boy names, so I don’t think you have to stick to the style—but if you LIKE unisex names for girls, I don’t think there’s any reason not to. Using a unisex name for her will increase the confusion levels by one unisex name: that is, each time you use a unisex name for ANY baby, boy or girl, you are adding one unit of “Is this a boy name or a girl name?” to your family.<\/p>\n

My own preference (but this is only my own preference) would be to choose all sister names to the girl side of Sage. That is, if we draw a spectrum with name usage getting more girl to the right and more boy to the left, I would prefer to choose sister names to the right side of Sage.<\/p>\n

\"boy<\/p>\n

But others might prefer the opposite technique: deliberately choosing girl names used more often for boys: Hayden, for example, or Ellis, or Drew.<\/p>\n

If your primary goal were to reduce the number of times people mistook your boy names for girl names, I’d suggest using completely unambiguous sister names. If I knew a family had two boys and two girls, and I knew the sibling names were Sage, Margaret, Quinn, and Josephine, I’d be fairly certain I knew which were which. However, this method only works when people DO know those two things: all the names together, and how many are of each sex. It won’t reduce the confusion for each individual child out in the world without his or her sibling names\/sexes as clues. Because most situations in life are the latter rather than the former, it doesn’t seem worth it to choose sister names only to clarify the brother names, unless that is the style of name you prefer anyway—and it sounds as if it isn’t. In which case, at this point I think I would just choose whatever unisex\/word name you like best for a girl, and assume that with time, all the acquaintances of each child will figure out that child’s sex from clues other than the name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I have a question concerning using unisex names for siblings, and would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. My husband and I love unisex and word names. For our first child, a boy born last year, we chose the name Sage. We would have used this name on a boy or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2MB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10704,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701\/revisions\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}