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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

I find the Krishna name interesting. Krishna is a male Hindu deity. However, it seems a lot of people were naming their girls Krishna. Now, it is a boy's name again.

My speculation for the cause of this is that Hare Krishna became popular among certain US groups in the 1970's and a lot of them named their daughters Krishna. Then, in more recent times, there has been a lot more immigration from India into the US, and these families name their boys Krishna.

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Though Krishnā is also a name, and the feminine version of Krishna (Krishnā is one of Draupadi's other names; where both Krishna and Draupadi are characters in the _Mahabharata_).

The point is, in India, Krishna is overwhelmingly a male name, with a few exceptions.

Perhaps in the 70s people also stuck to the general trend of female names ending with a vowel while make names typically ended with a consonant. Immigration from cultures such as India where this isn't the trend might indeed be responsible for it waning.

In latin countries male names end in o, and girls names end in a.

Not universally true. Consider a male name like Luca

Or Andrea.

Same as Lucas

Seems like a case of s-dropping from a transliteration of a Greek name, Lucas.

c.f. Andreas -> Andrea.

This has absolutely been the trend in India. Majority of male names from my generation and my parents' generation end in consonants, and ending with a vowel was indicative of a feminine name.

So I doubt Indian immigration at least impacted this trend in the direction suggested.

Cross cultural names are a source of misunderstandings. Many male Russian names, like Nikita or Ilya, are interpreted as female in English-speaking countries because of the -a ending. Same with male Italian names like Andrea.

My mother's name is Krishna, born in the early 1940s in Jhang ("West Punjab" then immigrated eastwards with partition). Just a random data point for you.

Jesus is a regionally popular name in states along the Mexican border including Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico.

https://flowingdata.com/2013/11/18/regional-names/

I wonder why more people don't name their children God? Maybe because it becomes problematic during the teenaged years.

Final long a is a feminine noun in Sanskrit. Short a is usually a masculine in Sanskrit. There are some exceptions to this.

Krishna is a river in India. It's very common to name daughters after rivers in India. Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Kaveri are more common feminine river names than Krishna, though.

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