{"id":11451,"date":"2015-07-01T10:31:28","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T14:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11451"},"modified":"2016-02-06T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:56:08","slug":"baby-boy-bronson-with-a-j-brother-to-drew-tatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/07\/01\/baby-boy-bronson-with-a-j-brother-to-drew-tatum\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Bronson-with-a-J, Brother to Drew: Tatum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle<\/p>\n

I wrote to you<\/a> over 4 years ago when we had trouble naming my son, who is now called Drew. I’m pregnant with a 2nd boy, and debating the name Tatum. It’s my maiden name, and it sums up all the happiness and love of my parents. But Tatum has been used with girls, and I’m concerned about having a boy named something that is assumed to now be female. I’m particular that my children have names that are clearly gender-specific when printed on their resume.<\/p>\n

We would call him Tate, so does that change things?<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nEmma Bronson-with-a-J<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If your goal is a clearly-gender-specific name, then Tatum does not meet that goal. According to the Social Security Administration, in 2014 the name Tatum was used for 828 new baby girls and 462 new baby boys: the name is currently unisex, used more often for girls.<\/p>\n

That same year, the name Tate was used for 27 new baby girls and 796 new baby boys, so that ought to improve the boy-guess rate if you use it as his nickname—but it’s impossible to know how many of the Tatums are going by Tate, and generally full names are used on resumes and class lists.<\/p>\n

Right now you have two conflicting preferences: one is to use a gender-specific name, and the other is to use your maiden name. You can only meet one of those two preferences. Which one weighs more, if you put them on a balance scale? Which one gives you more happiness to think about?<\/p>\n

It may be that it will work better for your family to use Tatum as a middle name. You could even call him Tatum\/Tate, but then on the resume it would be, for example, “Patrick Tatum Bronson”: completely gender-specific, and he can tell them later to call him Tate.<\/p>\n

[Readers: note from the 4-years-ago post that Drew is a nickname, not the given name. The given name is gender-specific.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I’m delayed in responding to our baby name. I apologize, because we’ve been in the war zone with this newborn. I am proud to report we were surprised to find out our little future baby boy was a girl on a 2nd ultrasound. Little Benjamin Tatum surprised us and needed a gender specific name and a whole new wardrobe. So we fought and struggled with how to incorporate Tatum into a feminine name that suits.<\/p>\n

Anne Tatum is her name.\u00a0 She was born December 15, and has continued to remind us of how difficult newborns can be! She is an angel when she’s sleeping.\u00a0 So far we like her good ole southern double name.\u00a0 Via text she is AT, but Anne Tatum suits her well. Unless she wants to find her name preprinted on a souvenir.\u00a0 I am so thankful for the comments and support of you and your readers.<\/p>\n

Love,
\nBrandon, Emma, big brother Drew and Anne Tatum<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0045\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle I wrote to you over 4 years ago when we had trouble naming my son, who is now called Drew. I’m pregnant with a 2nd boy, and debating the name Tatum. It’s my maiden name, and it sums up all the happiness and love of my parents. But Tatum has been used with […]<\/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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2YH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11451","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=11451"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11868,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11451\/revisions\/11868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}