The Unisex -sons

There are a lot of names out there that end in -son. Originally, most (but not all) of those names were for sons named after their fathers. For example, Jackson means "son of Jack" and Anderson means "son of Andrew". The fact that there is a "son" in the name makes it seem masculine, but quite a few of these names are being taken over, or at least borrowed, by the girls. There are also a lot of -sen and -syn names that sound the same, but for this post we are just going to take a look at the -sons.

There are over 300 -son names in the 2012 Beyond the Top 1000 names list. I have gathered them all and decided to concentrate first on the names given to both boys and girls. Here they are with the number of births in 2012:

	GIRLS		BOYS
Addison	8122		169
Adison	126		12
Alison	1179		5
Allison	5387		8
Anderson	44		1239
Bryson	8		3995
Carson	151		4566
Cayson	5		247
Crimson	59		32
Dawson	31		1027
Edison	13		301
Ellison	234		43
Emerson	1301		828
Emmerson	134		9
Gibson	10		247
Grayson	177		4671
Greyson	40		2216
Harrison	15		2111
Hudson	72		4194
Jackson	22		12388
Jameson	46		1795
Jamieson	5		34
Jamison	47		530
Jason	6		5699
Jaxson	10		3634
Jaymeson	5		26
Kaison	5		149
Karson	63		833
Kayson	23		440
Lawson	17		487
Madison	11319		30
Maeson	10		50
Maison	18		202
Mason	80		18856
Mattison	73		6
Mayson	44		338
Morrison	8		51
Payson	111		59
Pearson	9		46
Peyson	19		16
Pierson	5		132
Reason	5		8
Tennyson	15		32
Tyson	5		1343
	29078		73104

Just a few thoughts on the above...

Names Dominated by Girls
As seen by the numbers above, Addison and its spelling variations, Ellison, Emerson and its spelling variations, and Madison and its spelling variations are originally boy names taken over by girls.

Alison/Allison is a diminutive of Alice and therefore originally female. Crimson is a word name and therefore basically unisex.

The only other name on the list that is dominated by girls is one that stuck out to me: Payson/Peyson. Is its use solely due to the character on Make It or Break It? Is it used because it's a twist on Peyton? Is it used by parents who love the few US cities that also carry this name? I'm not sure if it was originally male or not, but it's used mostly on girls nowadays.

The rest of the unisex -sons are predominantly given to boys.

Boy Names on Girls
Some of these predominantly male names are a surprising find on girls. Girls named Emerson and Madison are expected, however girls named Harrison and Jackson are not. What makes some of these more "girl" than others? With the big 4 mentioned above, it is probably the feminine nicknames in Addie, Ellie, Emmy and Maddie. Jackie has been used as a girl nickname for years, as has Jamie and Andie, so why hasn't Jackson, Jameson or Anderson taken off with girls? Now that I think of it, Hattie would be a cute nickname for a girl Harrison (Harry or Henry... Harriet or Henrietta... Hattie). But the rest of the other male-dominated names listed above are pretty masculine. I'm sure some of them were named after a loved one, but in any case I would love to know the individual stories behind the names!

As a side note, I'm digging girls named Gibson and Tennyson.

What do you think about this list? Any observations, true loves, or true dislikes?

More analysis of names ending in -son later in the week...