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Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

> He actually wrote it for a woman named Bobby...

Bobby being short for... Roberta? But then again, after I recently saw female pop singer Taylor Swift watching male tennis player Taylor Fritz at the US Open, I realized that some American first names are just... flexible.

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It's pretty common in the US for a name that is traditionally associated with boys become unisex (Taylor) or even prominently female (Lauren). Typically it is an uncommon male name (so not, e.g. John or Brian) that sees a sudden increase in popularity and becomes unisex. Some other examples include Leslie, Casey, Jordan, Morgan, Addison, and Riley. I can't think of any examples of the reverse off the top of my head.

A chart of this phenomenon for Taylor:

https://engaging-data.com/baby-name-visualizer/?n=taylor&sex...

"Jordan" goes some ways back--there is a woman named Jordan in The Great Gatsby.

And it isn't entirely an American phenomenon: the critic Clive James was named Vivian James at birth, but the actress Vivian Leigh more or less claimed the name for the female sex when Gone With the Wind came out. James or his family fell back on his middle name to spare him teasing.

more or less claimed the name for the female sex when

Not entirely so however. Vivian Campbell[1] is still rocking the "Vivian" name for the male sex[2]!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Campbell

[2]: Not that any of this really matters of course. Vivian's name just popped to mind for me as I'm a huge fan of his work with Whitesnake and Def Leppard.

> "Jordan" goes some ways back [...] The Great Gatsby

Jordan is a river in the Middle East (also in the Bible) and more recently a country near such river. Like Brooklyn or Paris, it is a topological name that was co-opted into a first name. As such, it could always be used for either sex.

(Yes, Paris is also a male name found in the Iliad, but that doesn't share the etymology with the city of Paris, which is what most people refer to nowadays.)

And Evelyn (as in, e.g., Waugh, who pronounced it EEV-lin).

There's many English names that aren't gendered ex. Morgan, Casey, Charlie, Jayme (plus Taylor and Bobby as mentioned previously)

Charlie is a nickname for Charles and Charlene.

I would think Charlotte more than Charlene

There are men and women who, at least professionally, just go by Charlie. So it's kind of moot if it's on their birth certificate, you can't tell their gender by name.

Bobby short for Barbara, a secretary who worked at his managers office. He also didn't write it exactly _for_ her, his manager guy had the idea for the name and theme during a conversation with the guy who's secretary was bobby mckee.

All this can be seen at the link in gp comment

Even the ones that aren't are flexible.

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