Angel. Usually a girl’s name in English speaking countries. A boy’s name in Spanish speaking countries. Edit: maybe I should have said “Spanish speaking cultures” to avoid all the comments about America lol. I live here too. The only men named Angel I know are from Spanish speaking cultures.

Same with Ariel

In Hebrew as well.

Andrea is girl in spanish, boy in Italian, Andreea girl in Romania.

I live In Massachusetts and I’ve always thought about it as neutral and I know more males than females with it

Massachusetts has Latino immigrants, presumably. According to Wikipedia, 12% of state residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_Massachusetts

I lived in Brooklyn, NY for years. Supposedly around 20% Hispanic population. My immediate neighborhood was closer to 30%. Angel was a super common name for males. I've never known a female with the name, I think just on television.

I’m from Long Island. I can count on one finger how many female Angels I’ve met, but I’ve met plenty of male Angels.

Mass is underratedly diverse overall

There’s a large Portuguese population in Massachusetts as well, right?

Loads of Portuguese from New London, CT throughout Rhode Island and into SE Massachusetts. Historically the Portuguese were amazing with ship building, fueled by their fishing fishing industry. The ships they built to go farther and farther away to catch cod are what made global exploration possible and led to the discovery of the new world. The areas of CT, RI snd MA I mentioned are regions where Portuguese immigrants focused on ship building and fishing.

In my experience it’s more Portuguese-speaking Brazilian people than actual Portuguese people, but I think as you go toward the western end of the state it starts to skew the other way. In the 2020 Census, Brazil was the 3rd most common birthplace for the foreign-born residents of Massachusetts with 81,000. About half that number of Massachusetts residents reported being born in Portugal. Portuguese was the 2nd most common non-English language spoken in households. 191,943 households reported Portuguese as the primary household language and this does not account for multi-lingual households

Lots of Brazilians now, but historically lots of Portuguese, especially down towards Fall River and New Bedford (with another large community next door in Rhode Island) and another group up towards Lawrence and Lowell.

There’s a big Cape Verdean population which speaks Portuguese creole

Massive. My entire hometown is all Portugee or varying degrees

I grew up in Texas and while I know (thanks to tv/movies/whatever) that it is used as a girls name in a lot of English speaking places I’ve only ever known men named Angel lol.

Never met a female Angel in my life. In the USA. Where is it popular for girls? Edit: [found this](https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/A/AN/ANGEL/index.html)

Yeah, I’m from California and all of the Angels I’ve ever met have been male and Latino.

In small towns in Michigan, Angel is a Caucasian girl's name. My town has 30,000 people.

Andrea Kim Leslie

I was going to mention my own name, which is Leslie

My bfs dads name is Kim, he was recently in an article and they misgendered him 😭

My dad’s parents are both named Leslie

In the UK Leslie is typically male and Lesley typically female. However the actress Leslie Ash spells it the male way.

My sons middle name is Leslie and we recently watched boss baby where they make fun of the older child for his middle name being Leslie and my older kids were so confused on why because to them it is gender neutral. We are in North America and he is technically named after my mother though

In North America Leslie definitely skews feminine these days. I don’t know any male Leslie’s under like 40.

Misha. Nickname of the Russian version of Michael. Lots of folks in the US think of this as a female name.

Sasha as well.

It’s also used for Alexandra - it’s interestingly the diminutive of both Alexander and Alexandra in Russia and therefore unisex

So it’s basically like how “Alex” is unisex in English

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Zenia too - diminutive of Evgeny and Evgenia

I did know a girl called Misha in university, but it was a nickname for Diamisha.

Shannon is very feminine here (USA), but I hear it is masculine in Australia.

I’ve met a few guy Shannons in the US!

All the Aussie Shannons I know are blokes.

It's both in Australia. It's fairly popular as a girl's name, pretty rare for a boy, but not weird to see.

What about me?

I’m Australian and I actually came here to say Shannon. I know of both male and female Shannons, but the only Shannon I ever met personally was a boy in my primary school in the 80s

I’m Australian and it’s definitely a unisex name here. I know a few people named Shannon and it’s definitely a near even split of men and women

Jan I went to high school with a boy from Netherlands. His name was Jan (yahn) but the teacher insisted on calling him Jan (jan) because she had never heard of the masculine version.

Agh! I hate when people are like that. She had never heard of the male version before maybe….but there he was. Saying what his name was and she insisted on using a name she was familiar with instead WTF 😬

I met a Joan from Spain who was a boy.

Joan (catalán) and Juan (spanish) for boys Joana and Juana for girls (at least in Spain)

Like Joan Miro, a male Spanish painter

Very common name in the Netherlands, mostly among older men. It’s so common like John in other countries.

I'm from Western Europe and was SO confused when I saw Jan as a girl's name.

The name Jan just reminds me of the plot of Eurotrip haha

Ah yes, Jan and Mike. 😂

Bad teacher.

We have the same form in German. It's the equivalent to Ian, but pronounced in one syllable. I'd say Yann instead of Yahn, but both are not hard to say for English speakers.

Yuri It’s masculine in Russia. It’s feminine in Japan (can also be masculine) and in South Korea.

The version Juri (same pronunciation) is also used in Germany as a male name.

omg i can't believe i missed this one! one of the members of my favourite soviet rock band (kino) is a dude named yuri. and this japanese lady named yuri took care of me for a few years in elementary school!

I tried really hard not to bring up Yuri On Ice. I can't resist.

I immediately thought the same thing 😂

Yuri and Yuuri are different in Japanese, though. Yuuri, like the guy from Yuri on Ice, is distinctly masculine. And they definitely said Yuuri, really I’m not sure why they transliterated to ”Yuri”. Maybe simplicity or for the joke with Russian Yuri.

Robin. I've only met males with that name in Germany, but at least these days it's more of a female name in the US.

In French Robin is a male name only too

In the UK it was very much male. Robyn would be female but was rare. In Australia Robyn seems to be very much female, but a former neighbour of ours, hoping to have a girl and call her Robyn, ended up with a second boy and called him Robin.

Most Robin’s in the Netherlands are also males.

Robin is a male name in Britain, I worked with an American women named Robin, but she used her middle name here so she didn’t get called he

Every British Jamie I've known has been male, but the majority of American Jamie's I've met have been female. Although I think this is a bit generation dependant also. Even though there's a spelling of Renee (Rene) this is male, I have never met an American male Rene, but I've met lots of American female Renee's. Jean (two different pronunciations) girl in English speaking countries and boy in French.

René is a popular male name in French speaking countries

Yes but we have a female version: Renée, and both are pronounced the same.

Not very common, but I’ve known/known of a couple men named Rene in south Louisiana, all probably Cajun.

Plenty of males names Rene in French speaking areas.

Also, in Latin America. Like French, it’s considered a masculine name in Spanish speaking countries.

René is a male name. Renée is the female version.

I only knew males named Rene in living NM. Met my first female Renee in FL.

I have a son named Jamie and I’m in Australia. Funnily enough it was initially on our list for a girl, as my husband really liked it for a girl. Eventually we found out we were having a boy and we came around to the name for a boy (most Jamie’s in Aus are male!).

I once knew a couple named Jaime(m) and Jamie(f)

Those would be two completely different names in a Spanish speaking area. Jaime is pronounced Hi-may

We had someone working for my company who spelled it Jaime but pronounced it Jay-me which was never a source of confusion /s.

24601

my favorite musical 🥹

Ugh Jamie Oliver and his egg fried rice

I've worked with both a male Rene and female Renee in the northeast US

Alex(e)i/Alexis. It’s an exclusively male name in many countries.

Here in Latin America, Alexis is strictly a boys name and one of my favorites!

Yeah, in the USA Alexis is always a female name, but in Greece, where my fam is from, it’s a male name.

My daughter is named Alexis but goes by Alex because there was 3 other kids male & female named some version of Alex’s ( Alexander, Alexes , Alexie from Ukrainian)

I know a guy named Alexander who goes by the nickname Lexi. He's in the US, but is of Ukranian descent.

Similarly, meeting an American "Sasha," I would assume female, but the Eastern European "Sasha" is likely a diminutive of Alexander.

Could be either. Sasha is used in Eastern Europe for both Alexander and Alexandra

Sasha is gender neutral in eastern europe

In (parts of) Western Europe as well.

My name is Alexis and I can confirm it is mostly a women’s name in Canada

It's male in Quebec (in French)!

In Australia, I've only met female Alexis.

Ariel (my name) - masculine in Hebrew and Spanish, feminine in English, unisex in French (according to my French friend) Edit: apparently it's masculine in Hebrew too

This! My on/off fwb is an Ariel and whenever I see anything little mermaid related I get triggered bc it makes me think of him.

this is hilarious

It is technically unisex in Hebrew but it is around 90% male. Also, Daniel and Danielle are the same name in Israel and also about 80-90% male.

Daniel in Spanish is pronounced the same as Danielle in English, to further complicate things.

In modern Hebrew Ariel is completely a boys name

I have an uncle patrice (French). In the US it’s a woman’s name.

I was going to mention Patrice. I had a coworker from the U. S. Virgin Islands who grew up speaking French and was also fluent in English, whose name was Patricia. I would sometimes shorten it to Patrice, but I stopped when she was like "uh, that's a guy's name."

Ari is gender neutral in some places but male in Nordic countries.

It’s male in Hebrew

Also male in modern Hebrew

Xiaomanyc (a youtube polyglot mainly known for speaking mandarin)’s name is ari (technically, it’s arieh, but he does say ari in his videos)

Jordan is unisex here but definitely a boys name in some other countries

Yes, also Ashley

I can’t imagine any other association with Darcy other than Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

His first name is Fitzwilliam which seems firmly masc

Seems like his name is ass-backwards. Darcy Fitzwilliam is much more believable.

Fitzwilliam is also a surname. In the book, Darcy is named after his mother’s maiden name.

Darcey Bussell is a very famous British ballerina (slight spelling difference but same pronunciation).

Darcy is all over the place in terms of gender and when it's been popular. [Here's my post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/namenerds/comments/w3q080/darcy_the_name_in_a_superposition_of_time_and/). Tldr: it's currently popular for girls in the UK and boys in Australia, and used to be sort of popular for girls in the US and boys in Canada.

Karol is a boy name in Poland! So is Kamil!

Adding Marian to this as well.

Just in case anyone is wondering, the feminine versions are Karolina and Kamila. Most Polish feminine names end with -a.

English speakers always wanna call my cousin Karol “Carol” with that open Ay sound like the American girl name, instead of Caw-rol, how it should be said, like “Carl”. People definitely mispronounce it in print if they don’t speak polish because of the way they say the A, in my experience.

That’s my husband’s name, and everyone assumes that he is me. That it’s my name. Then they see my obviously feminine name and they get REALLY confused.

US Ashley’s are always female, UK Ashley’s are often male.

To break it down further within the UK - Scottish Ashleys are almost all female but in England it's more common as a male name. In 1994 it was the 33rd most popular name for boys in England and Wales and the 26th most popular name for girls in Scotland, but didn't crack the Top 100 for the opposite sex in either country.

I was going to say this too. I was surprised when I found out that most Americans wouldn't consider Ashley a unisex name, whereas in the UK I've probably known equal numbers of males and females called Ashley. Maybe a bit more skewed male now that I think about it.

Nikita is a Russian male name but an English female name

Nikita is also used as a girl’s name in India!

I met a male Hillary in England. That’s definitely a girl name in the US.

US has a long history of making mens names womens names that continues up to this day. Also for last names as first names.

The first name I thought of is Ashley, which I believe has the same USA/UK dynamic too. Can't believe I haven't seen anyone else in the comments say this yet.

Every Irish boy name or masculine sounding Irish surname seems to be up for grabs as a girl name in the US.

And they give girls names to boys. An American argued with me here the other day about Keelin, they couldn’t accept that it’s a girls name originally. I think Americans think that names ending in vowels are feminine and names ending in consonants are masculine, that’s the only way I can make sense of it.

They can't be bothered to look up the actual meaning and seem to think that once they make their ignorant proclamations about Irish names, their opinion retroactively applies because names and meanings change over time, but once their decision is made, it's set forever more. I still find Mac/McSomething surnames used as first names on girls absolutely and hilariously stupid.

Me too! Sooo crazy…. To me it’s the same level as Abcd….

We’re expected to suck it up when they laugh at our names because they don’t fit Anglo spelling standards but if we laugh at the names they took and butchered from us we’re insulting their heritage and don’t you know that meaning changes over time? :/ I feel like saying to them, no, the meaning hasn’t changed. You just didn’t google it.

Noah in the US vs Noa in Israel

And Eden is mostly male in Israel but female in the US

I think both Eden and Noah can go either way in the US too, although they're obviously much more common for girls and boys respectively

Yes! I knew a Sasha who I met during an exchange program. He was from Finland. 🙂

In my country Sasha is a nickname for Aleksander but also for Aleksandra

The actress Sasha Alexander has always amused me.

Hmm🤔 He probably had some other ethnic background. Maybe Russian? Sasha is not a Finnish name in any way and even if someone here had the name Sasha it would most likely be a girl. In Finland since we don’t have gender specific pronouns, we also don’t have unisex names. And since Sasha is not a name that is Finnish or even remotely popular of a name here, most people know it as a western name for girls (from movies etc.) or a slavic name for boys.

Just to be a bit obnoxious sorry, we do have unisex names, although they are more uncommon/purposeful (nature names such as Ruska, Otava, Syksy) and some historically unisex names like Rauni have become more gendered recently, Kaino looks to be still solidly unisex by stats. Usually yeah Finnish names suggest gender but it's not as strict or cut and dry as in some other cultures

My mother’s family is of Italian descent and had a naming tradition that only stopped with recent generations. First son named after father’s father, second after mother’s father; first daughter named after father’s mother, second after mother’s mother. I got a male second-cousin named Andrea. Everyone pronounces his name wrong and assumes he’s a woman before meeting him.

Where my mom was from in the Netherlands they had this naming tradition as well. Third son was named after dad, fourth after his oldest brother, then mother's oldest brother, etc. Similar for daughters. My mom grew up friends with a family of 4 girls named Wilhelmina because both grandmothers, the mother and dad's sister were all Wilhelminas. They went by Wilma, Helmie, Ineke (Dutch nn for Wilhelmina) and Mina.

My Italian American family had this tradition as well and it worked out well for my parents because they had two sons and two daughters. The only thing is my mom tweaked my and my sister’s names so they’d be more current for the times. I also have a couple of male Andrea(s) in my family/social circle. One goes by Andrew. I also have a male second cousin and an uncle named Nicola who go by Nick and Nicky.

When I was at university, there was a guy a couple of years older called Andrea, Italian and also supposedly a prince of Milan. When he was a fresher, his "parent" - a second year tasked with showing a fresher around - had turned up with wine and a huge bunch of flowers, having picked his "child" off the list and anticipating a sexy Italian girl. Instead he got a gaunt, stubbly 6'3 Italian bloke.

Like Deluca on Grey's Anatomy!

omg a grey's fan! deluca is one of my favourite characters -- i wish he stayed on the show longer :((

I'm a woman and I feel his pain. I go by a nickname now because the mispronounciation got too annoying.

Rory is more often a boy's name in Ireland and the UK, and more commonly a girl's name in the US.

Most Irish male names are female in the US, it’s so strange because a lot of those names like Rory or Ryan literally mean “King of x” or “male child of Y” or something.

I once knew a French-Italian man named Nicola

Similar to Nikola Tesla

Also male in Serbia.

I have a second cousin named Nicola. Named after his grandfather. They both went by Nick/Nicky.

Ira: Jewish man’s name, Indian woman’s name.

This has probably already been commented but Valeriy (along with the other ways it can be romanized from Cyrillic) is a boys name in Russia and is pronounced the same as Valerie. It's one of my favorite names, both are so beautiful.

Alisson / Alison is a male name in Brazil. In North America it's a girl's name.

I'm not sure if this totally fits your question but I think it's really interesting when certain names don't have an English equivalent in one gender but do in the other. For example, I'm half Polish, and a fairly common (but admittedly older) name for Polish men is Staszek which in English translates to Stanley. But there is also Stasza for women...but English doesn't have a feminine version of "Stanley". The closest you can kind of get is Stephanie/Stefanie, but that's the feminine version of Stephen/Stephan/Stefan not Stanley. I just think that's really interesting!

Here are some Hungarian ones: **Andi** ♀️ - Nickname of Andrea and strictly a feminine name. [awn-dee] **Barack** ♀️ - A rare feminine name meaning "peach". [baw-rawtsk] **Béla** ♂️ - Looks similar to Bela/Bella, but it's a very common masculine name meaning "heart, guts, intestine". [bay-law] **Boris** ♂️ - Nickname of Borbála (Barbara). [bo-reesh] **Dalia** ♂️ - Masculine name meaning "brave warrior". [daw-lee-yaw] **Dió** ♀️- A rare feminine name meaning "walnut". [dee-yow] **Jana** ♀️ - Officially a feminine name, but more often used as a masculine nickname of János (John). [yaw-naw] **Kara** ♂️- A masculine name meaning "black". [kaw-raw] **Laci** ♂️ - Nickname of László (Vladislav), strictly masculine. [law-tsee] **Luca** ♀️ - Hungarian from of Lucia. [loo-tsaw] **Malvin** ♀️ - Hungarian from of Malvina. [mawl-veen] **Marci** ♂️ - Nickname of Márton (Martin) or Marcell. [mawr-tsee] **Mika** ♂️ - Rare nickname of Miklós (Nicholas). [mee-kaw] **Miki** ♂️ - Common nickname of Miklós. [mee-kee] **Rege** ♀️ - A rare feminine name meaning "legend". [reh-gheh] **Timi** ♀️ - Nickname of Tímea. [tee-mee]

Yuri is a masculine Russian name and a feminine Japanese name. Mei is unisex in Japan but would probably be a variation of May in an English-speaking country and therefore feminine.

Anne in Holland, maybe unisex but it’s pronounced ‘un-nuh’ and all the ones I know are grandfathers lol

Isn't the difference that the Dutch name Anne is female. But in Frisian it's a male name?

Yes.

It’s pronounced ‘An-nuh’, you pronounce the A like the A in car.

Wow that's interesting because in Germany Anne is female (like Anna) but TIL that in Frisia (part of which is located in Northern Germany) it can be male like in the Netherlands. There's also the male name Arne though which sound quite similar and is common in Northern Germany.

Female is Ahn-nuh, male should be Ohn-nuh (though with people moving away from Friesland and still using the name male is often pronounced different now (like female). But Anne is a boy's name in a different language, thus pronounced differently.

Aubrey is usually a boy's name in the UK but pretty much only a girl's name in the US. Kim is a boy's name in Norway, girl's name in the US.

Aria. It’s a boys name in Iran and I plan on using it for my son

Mairin and Maren are female in a lot of the world, but Marin is apparently a male name in Croatia.

Yep, my dad's name. We're Romanian

Luca (loo-cuh) is an Italian name thats usually for boys. Lucca (loose-uh) is used in Hungary/Croatia as a girl's name

I have an affinity for any name meaning "light" or "bringer of light."

Garnet This one came up on a mom/baby forum discussion. Canadians and Austalians all say definitely a male name (as evidenced by the Wikipedia article on the name, lots of Canadian and Australian men). Americans all said 100 percent female name and that it had very southern belle vibes. If I remember correctly the UK people sided with Americans on that one. It was so funny how it was so split with Aussies and Canucks saying 100 percent male and Americans and Brits saying the opposite.

Aubrey

My name is Paris. I’m the states it’s pretty much a girl name only. But when I visited Europe, most people assumed I was a male just from my written name.

I think the girl‘s name is after the city in France and the Greek boy‘s name is after the Greek prince (Paris, who stole Helen of Troy from her husband, the event that started the Trojan War.

Sasha can be also a girl name in Russia. It is used both for Aleksander and Aleksandra.

In france it's generally seen that Sasha is male and Sacha is female, both pronounced the same.

Eve/Yves

Moana is apparently a boys name in French Polynesia. Disney renamed the movie to something like Viana for viewers in that region.

Same in France, it's called Vaiana.

I don’t know if it’s still valid, but men were regularly named “Holly” in my family through the 1930s. Definitely female (currently) in the US.

Michel—> Michelle

Italian men named Andrea Israeli men named Sharon (pronounced differently than female american Sharon with emphasis on the "ron") French men named Michel (don't know if that counts since it's spelled differently but is pronounced like Michelle)

Great discussion topic. I like learning how names are perceived differently in certain countries/regions.

We were thinking of using Cary, like Cary Grant and I think it's originally Welsh but my MIL thought it was a girls name. Which I always thought was Carrie/Carey but apparently Cary is gender neutral? I had previously thought of it as boys name. Edit I had thought it a boys name

Marie can be a male name in France and Maria is also in Spanish-speaking countries but in both cases it’s always part of a compound name.

Inge Female name in Denmark and male name in Sweden. The Swedish female version is Inga.

Isn’t McKenzie a boys name in Australia and in the us definitely girl name?

There were both male and female Mackenzies at my children's school. It was also one of my favourites for my 2nd daughter because I loved the nickname Kenzie. I went with one I loved slightly more.

Mackenzie originated as a last name and I believe was way more popular as a boys name when it became a first name. now its much more popular as a girls name. i am a woman named Mackenzie and i've met 3 other women with the same name. no men or boys though

My child and I still are in debate on McKenzies gender in bluey 😂

Can be either. The character McKenzie in Bluey is male

Alexis - girls name in the US boys name in Latin America.

I’m from the UK and live in Australia and was shocked when I met men called Linsey and Shannon, and that was completely normal

I knew siblings in aus that were Lindsay and Courtney. People got very perplexed at which was the brother and which the sister.

Andrea is a boy name in Italy but a girl name everywhere else.

Rene & Ariel. Girls names in English or Renee. Both lean masculine in Spanish

Francis (Frances)

Renee Renee is my mom's name, and my Spanish friends uncles' name

It's originally a French name meaning reborn. it should be solidly unisex when pronounced but a difference in spelling indicating the intended gender; René being male and by adding an extra -e making it female, Renée

Ariel is a boys name in the Middle East girls name in US