You have an interview with Robin at 2pm, or you’ve just met Charlie online and you might assume they’re men, but you won’t know until you meet them.
That’s certainly the way it should be: gender-neutral names help eliminate prejudice, whether it’s a patient anticipating their doctor’s visit or a recruiter looking at job applications.
ONE DR report claims that parents in Denmark are increasingly wiser to the idea of giving their child a gender-neutral name in order to give them more leeway if they one day choose to identify as a different gender than the one they were born with.
Just under 6,300 Danish newborns were given gender-neutral names in 2021 – an increase of 8.6 percent compared to the number in 2019, according to Statistics Denmark.
Certainly, their efforts make it a more level playing field out there—either that, or they just think unisex names are really cool.
However, few names have a 50-50 balance
According to a DR report, there are 1,375 names available to Danish parents that qualify as gender-neutral names, although many internationals are probably unaware of many more options.
Some might really surprise you – like the name Ella, which despite ending with a feminine sounding ‘A’, was a common boy’s name in ancient Northern Europe. Of the 35 newborns named in 2021, three were male.
It is noteworthy that on the list of the 15 most popular gender-neutral names compiled by Statistics Denmark, no one is equally balanced.
They are either strongly favored by boys (Luca, Charlie, Bille, Atlas, Falke – top five on the list) or by girls (Bjørk, Ella, Sol and Billie – number 6 to 12).
And who knows: they might end up marrying someone with the same name as them. British author Evelyn Waugh and ex-footballer Kerry Mayo did just that!
Source: The Nordic Page