Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think Neil is becoming popular with girls. I think it's just a few families. I think it's like Evan, or James, or Wesley or August. A solidly male name that a few people, for whatever reason, give to their daughters.
I think Neil is OK, and Nathaniel is fantastic, so i'd never use Neil as a nickname for Nathaniel, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't. However, I don't really follow your reasoning for not just naming him Neil.
np. This is the name I disagree with as being solely male. I think August is a name that could be boy or girl. While traditionally June has been a month for girls I don't see why boys could be named June, although in our culture it is only seen acceptable to name girls that were boy's names rather than the other way around. Mark Zuckerberg named his daughter August!
What makes "August" more masculine that James?
Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks, ppl. I’m off Neil. Nate is fine. Sometimes these ideas just pop in my head.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of any girl called/named, Neil.
DD8 has a girl named Neil in her class at school.
Anonymous wrote:I don't think Neil is becoming popular with girls. I think it's just a few families. I think it's like Evan, or James, or Wesley or August. A solidly male name that a few people, for whatever reason, give to their daughters.
I think Neil is OK, and Nathaniel is fantastic, so i'd never use Neil as a nickname for Nathaniel, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't. However, I don't really follow your reasoning for not just naming him Neil.
Anonymous wrote:I personally am a little irritated by the nicknames that are totally different from the first names. My son has a friend with that situation, and it took me a while to figure out how to contact him for parties, play-dates, etc., because he was listed in the directory and class lists by his given name, which my son had never heard of. He kept insisting there was a boy named X in his class, and I was like, well, I have no idea who he is.
I imagine that people have similar problems with things like resumes, background checks, mail, airline tickets, etc. (Small similar example, which is that I know someone who uses a slightly different name for professional purposes. She had an airplane ticket bought for her for a conference by the sponsoring organization, and she wasn't able to board the plane because the ticket did not match the name on her driver's license.)
Clearly you can do whatever you want. But I think that the purpose of a name is to know what to call someone. And if you're not going to call them that, then why name them that?