Unisex name craziness

[taimatsu]

On a community Im read someone just mentioned the US TV series 'Gossip Girl'. This programme has six lead characters, three boys, three girls. Here's the list of the actors' names:

Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Taylor Momsen, Ed Westwick

Apart from the most-likely-male Ed, which of these are the male and which the female stars? I'm guessing Chace might be female as I would expect 'Chase' for a boy, but other than that I've no clue. Guesses? Answers? Anyone? And isn't it kind of weird that most of those names - Penn, Taylor, Blake, Leighton - are far more common as surnames?

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

*googles for the heck of it*

Blake Lively - female
Leighton Meester - female
Penn Badgley - male
Chace Crawford - actually Christopher Chace Crawford; male
Taylor Momsen - female

It is rather weird ;) They're all scarily young, too (apparently Ms. Momsen was born in 1993)

[kake]

I guess that Leighton, Penn, and Taylor are female. (Haven't read other comments yet.)

[cultureofdoubt.livejournal.com]

Betting:

Penn - female. The only Penn I know is of Penn and Teller, and Penn there is a male, but the name was supposed to be if he was born a girl, as Penelope or something. As it happened, he had a willy, but I expect most Penns are girls.
Taylor - female
Ed - male
One female needed - for which I bet Blake is female.
Leaves Leighton male, which fits with my suspicions, and the previously unheard of name of Chace as a male too.

[medland.livejournal.com]

Didn't Penn from Penn and Teller call his kid Moxie Crimefighter?!

[cultureofdoubt.livejournal.com]

He has two kids. Zolten and Moxie Crimefighter.

Fantastic man.

[medland.livejournal.com]

Kid in my Sunday School class wanted to call her new sister Tulip Monkeycatcher.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I knew someone once whose parents asked their three(?)-year-old child to name their new baby. The girl wasn't pleased at having a sister, and nominated "Custard". The parents, having rejected that, were foolhardy enough to ask again, and she suggested the made-up name Tiki. To (my astonishment at any rate), the parents accepted this (http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=100000080&id=504620044).

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Surnames as first names seem to be not uncommon in the USA. I knew a British Leighton once; he was male. But what goes in the UK doesn't necessarily apply to the US (apparently my own name, Michael, is sometimes used for females over there).

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Then I always need to ad when I speak to a person from the US that I am talking about my male friend when I say 'Michael'.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Not really; "Michael" is still overwhelmingly a male name there.

[chaosdeathfish.livejournal.com]

I would have guessed Leighton as male, since that's my brother's name.

Wierd.

[mrkgnao.livejournal.com]

Oh those wacky Amercians... =P

[medland.livejournal.com]

I thought the EXACT same thing when I read those names! Excatly! *sings the XF theme tune*

[medland.livejournal.com]

Oh, and they all sound like investment banks.

[abi]

I gather it was all started by the practice in the US of passing both parents' surnames on to the children - the mother's maiden name would be incorporated as an additional middle name*. So e.g. John Blake and Mary Penn get married and call their children David Alexander Penn Blake and Susan Elizabeth Penn Blake, known as David Blake and Susan Blake. When Susan grows up she marries Michael Chace and her kids get Blake as a middle name. Gradually the surnames stop sounding odd as given names, and people start giving their kids old family surnames as first names. Goodness knows how they decide whether $surname sounds better as a girl's name or a boy's, though.

* similar to custom in present day Spain I believe - there, people are known as Name Middlename(s) PaternalSurname MaternalSurname and both surnames are used on an everyday basis.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Well, I know that 'Blake' is a male name...

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I just know that the name Friedmann in Germany can be sometimes used as first name but actually it is more suitable as a surename. Somebody called her child like that. But all the names she chose for her children are very old fashion. Some of them are not old fashion here like Emma which is very old fashion in Germany.