Follow-up to yesterday’s post: Opposite gender name?

sanctanomina Fun Friday Question,

Thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday’s post here on the blog and also on both Facebook and Instagram! It was so fun to read your responses! One thing several of you shared was the name you would have had if you’d been a boy (all my responders were women) — I didn’t think to share that part of my name story, but I wish I had! My parents planned to name me Joshua if I’d been a boy, which is a name both my husband and I quite like, but it doesn’t work with our last name. That would have been a fun way to name a boy after me though! I loved reading that too — that several of you considered names for your children that were names almost given to you. I’m a big fan of creativity in honor naming!

Happy Saturday, day of Our Lady and eve of Divine Mercy Sunday! (Notable fact: St. John Paul the Great died on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday.) ❤ ❤ ❤

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!

16 thoughts on “Follow-up to yesterday’s post: Opposite gender name?”

  1. I was almost Joshua too! Although, my mom wasn’t so sure about it, because my grandmother thought it sounded ‘wet.’ We didn’t end up using Joshua for any of my brothers. It wasn’t until many years later my mom realized that it was Jesus’ name! Had she known she might have actually used it!

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  4. The other girl name option for me was Talitha.

    If I had been a boy, the name was Joshua Robert. My little brother got given Joshua as a first, but got a different middle name. 🙂

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  6. I would have been Benjamin, which I really like!

    Fun fact: in the Czech Republic (and maybe other CE countries?), you must fill out a form (ideally before birth, but you can get away with after the birth) listing BOTH gender name options. Even if you’ve already had the baby and it is clearly one gender, the form needs two names! So there is an entire database out there with “if I had been a…, I would have been called….” names!

    We used this as a great opportunity to humor the older kids. After our son was born, we wrote the middle name our older girls wanted for a girl (Noelle, since it was Christmastime)!

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    • That is crazy!! Do you know why that is required? I know some countries have lists of approved names or whatever, but I can’t imagine the bureaucratic relevance of a baby name for a baby who doesn’t exist (e.g. a baby boy when there is actually a baby girl)!

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      • There is a LOT mired in the muds of bureaucracy that doesn’t make sense here, lol. But the approach generally is : this is how it has been done, and is done, so it must be done. In this name case, its just entertaining, especially for a name nerd! Other times, it’s not so entertaining 😉

        And there is an official name office that must approve all names. So when you’re deciding on the names to write on the form, you first go to the “name lady” (there is one main one, lol – I LOVE her job!) and she pulls out this big name book (“Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?” It’s old and warn – clearly well-used. But you can buy a copy in bookstores too). If the name is in it, fine, you are good to go. But if it’s not, you have to convince the bureaucracy that it is a legitimate name somewhere and they have to approve it. Though this is relaxing quite a bit, particularly if one parent is not Czech.

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