[name]One[/name] of my friends has 4 children: [name]Nico[/name], [name]Sawyer[/name], [name]Reese[/name] and [name]Greyson[/name], 3 girls 1 boy. The boy is [name]Reese[/name]. They choose [name]Nico[/name] to honour her sister [name]Nicole[/name] and [name]Sawyer[/name] is her maiden name. [name]Reese[/name] was chosen because they liked [name]Reece[/name] for a boy but decided to go with the [name]Reese[/name] spelling to make it a true unisex sibset and [name]Greyson[/name] was chosen because they liked it. The only thing that makes it okay to me is they are [name]Nico[/name] [name]Rose[/name], [name]Sawyer[/name] [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Reese[/name] [name]Jonathan[/name] and [name]Greyson[/name] [name]Louise[/name] so all gender confusion is gone. A future boy would be [name]Bailey[/name] [name]Thomas[/name] ([name]Bailey[/name] is almost all boy in Australia) and a future girl [name]Darcy[/name] [name]Georgina[/name] (almost all boy aswell in Australia) So the point of this is would you ever name a sibset or a child a unisex name? Would you go for a name like [name]Hayden[/name] [name]Maree[/name] or would you go for [name]Hayden[/name] [name]Avery[/name] and leave the gender a guess?
I would personally never do it. No offense to your friend, but to me it comes across as almost tacky, perhaps because it’s so overdone. And why have all that gender confusion when you could just pick a nice, feminine name? I was born with a name that was well-known as feminine to most, but on the rare occasion when someone would assume I was male I found it very irritating, and I hated my male middle name too. I think the term “unisex” has moved so far away from names that really are appropriate for both genders, to just being boys names stuck on girls.
If I had to use a “unisex” first name, I’d definitely go for a very, very feminine middle, for example [name]Hayden[/name] [name]Arabella[/name] or [name]Sawyer[/name] [name]Penelope[/name]. And I’d choose one that at least has a somewhat feminine sound - for example, you can see why someone might say [name]Riley[/name], [name]Darcy[/name] or [name]Asa[/name] sounds feminine, but [name]Greyson[/name] and [name]Nico[/name] are just all-male in their sound in my opinion.
(btw, your girls’ names are so lovely!)
I think it’s just fine! Personally, I don’t like super feminine names, and so I completely understand not wanting to choose a “nice feminine name” for your girls. It is a bit confusing, but in the end all you have to do is meet the kid once and you know their gender. It is only confusing when you’re talking about them, which can always be clarified!
Your friend’s name combos are all very attractive, but while I love many unisex names ([name]Harper[/name], [name]Reese[/name], etc.), I can’t imagine using one as a first name for my own child. An all-girl first name with a surname-y middle name is divine for a girl, though! ([name]Elizabeth[/name] [name]Sawyer[/name]? Delightful.) In most situations, middle names are not readily apparent, so I don’t think a gender-specific middle name really does much to clarify a person’s gender. To me, [name]Nico[/name], [name]Sawyer[/name], [name]Reese[/name] and [name]Greyson[/name] all seem like male names, so I’d assume they were all boys until I met them and learned otherwise. I definitely wouldn’t use an ambiguous combo. (And honestly, most ambiguous combos aren’t all that ambiguous…they’re just boys’ names given to girls…confusing, perhaps misapplied, but not ambiguous.)
Unisex names are so not my thing. And the fact that they changed [name]Rhys[/name]/[name]Reece[/name] to [name]Reese[/name] to deliberately make the whole set unisex seems try-hard to me. Not to mention they’ve trapped themselves for another baby. You can’t have a [name]William[/name] or [name]Xavier[/name] now, but you probably could have, had it been spelled [name]Rhys[/name]/[name]Reece[/name]. And if I had to guess, I’d guess they were all boys. I’d be mighty peeved if people assumed I was a boy when they saw my name… but that’s just me.
I do like that they gave gender specific middle names, and [name]Sawyer[/name] [name]Elizabeth[/name] is fantastic.
FWIW I would say [name]Bailey[/name] is a girls name (i’m in Aus too) so it’s all perception.
I can’t finish this post without saying that your childrens names are FANTASTIC.
I think there’s a fine line. I can see [name]Nico[/name] because of the connection to [name]Nicole[/name], but I wouldn’t use a name that included -son for my girl—even [name]Madison[/name].
That said I know a lovely [name]Henri[/name] (girl), [name]Bobbie[/name] (grandmother), [name]Kim[/name] (dude)—so it’s not like it can’t work in real life, it just wouldn’t be my choice.
Honestly, more than the actual names, it bothers me a lot more that they purposely chose the names in order to make a “unisex” set. Seems very selfish and attention seeking.