Continuing a tangent from elsewhere on apparently gendered given names, I was astonished to see someone on maybe Quora or Yahoo Answers or some other outlet for internet misinformation, assert that “Robin” in that spelling is mostly a male name, and “Robyn” is the female version.
Since my sister is named “Robin” I saw immediately that the generalization was baloney. And if we’re talking modern American usage, it’s not even quite right as a relative frequency observation — though Wikipedia asserts: ” In Europe, although it is sometimes regarded as a feminine name, it is generally given to boys. In 2014, 88% of babies named Robin in England were boys.[2] In United States, it used to be more popular as a feminine name—during the 1990s, for example, it was the 325th most popular name for girls and the 693rd most popular name for boys. However the gap has been narrowing and recently the number of baby boys and baby girls named Robin in United States has been roughly similar (as visualized in the adjacent chart) “
Anyway, here is a picture of a fictional character with my sister’s name. I like to post it to social media on her birthday, and congratulate her on her degree and new career.
CIDU Bill, yes, it is a geo-restriction. Which is odd, because when a video is not available in my country the message I get is usually “This video is not available in your country”, not “This video is unavailable”. Regardless, when I switched to a VPN to request the video with a USA IP address, it works with no problem.
As Mitch4 already demonstrated, the answers found in Quora and Yahoo are often crowd-sourced hogwash. The statistics recorded on the SSA’s “baby names” page show that Robin was widely used both for boys and for girls for many decades in the 20th century, but with differing periods and strengths of popularity. The curve is (much) stronger for girls (peaking at #25 in 1963) than for boys (#143 in 1956), but the idea that “the gap is narrowing” is utterly ridiculous, because the name fell off the charts for both genders (in 2000 and 2005, respectively), with only one appearance each in the top-1000 since then.
P.S. The alternative spelling “Robyn” is a post-war invention, peaking later (1974), and never getting anywhere near the same popularity (its best placement was #169 on the girls chart, it never made it into the top-1000 for boys). It disappeared at the same time “Robin” did, in 2005.
And wouldn’t it be even more so if both were named Hilary?
(And I can’t remember where, but wasn’t there a story or at least trope about twins named Hilary and Tristram? And would be seen as typically inhabiting moods, happy and sad.)
Comics I Don't Understand 
I clicked and it said the video is not available. Didn’t say way. But this one worked for me.
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Thanks SB.
@CIDURobin: I like it.
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SBill, it could be a regional issue. It’s working for me here in New Jersey.
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Continuing a tangent from elsewhere on apparently gendered given names, I was astonished to see someone on maybe Quora or Yahoo Answers or some other outlet for internet misinformation, assert that “Robin” in that spelling is mostly a male name, and “Robyn” is the female version.
Since my sister is named “Robin” I saw immediately that the generalization was baloney. And if we’re talking modern American usage, it’s not even quite right as a relative frequency observation — though Wikipedia asserts: ” In Europe, although it is sometimes regarded as a feminine name, it is generally given to boys. In 2014, 88% of babies named Robin in England were boys.[2] In United States, it used to be more popular as a feminine name—during the 1990s, for example, it was the 325th most popular name for girls and the 693rd most popular name for boys. However the gap has been narrowing and recently the number of baby boys and baby girls named Robin in United States has been roughly similar (as visualized in the adjacent chart) “
Anyway, here is a picture of a fictional character with my sister’s name. I like to post it to social media on her birthday, and congratulate her on her degree and new career.
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Not working in the UK. SBill’s does though.
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CIDU Bill, yes, it is a geo-restriction. Which is odd, because when a video is not available in my country the message I get is usually “This video is not available in your country”, not “This video is unavailable”. Regardless, when I switched to a VPN to request the video with a USA IP address, it works with no problem.
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“This video is unavailable and the reason is need-to-know only.”
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As Mitch4 already demonstrated, the answers found in Quora and Yahoo are often crowd-sourced hogwash. The statistics recorded on the SSA’s “baby names” page show that Robin was widely used both for boys and for girls for many decades in the 20th century, but with differing periods and strengths of popularity. The curve is (much) stronger for girls (peaking at #25 in 1963) than for boys (#143 in 1956), but the idea that “the gap is narrowing” is utterly ridiculous, because the name fell off the charts for both genders (in 2000 and 2005, respectively), with only one appearance each in the top-1000 since then.
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P.S. The alternative spelling “Robyn” is a post-war invention, peaking later (1974), and never getting anywhere near the same popularity (its best placement was #169 on the girls chart, it never made it into the top-1000 for boys). It disappeared at the same time “Robin” did, in 2005.
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In France, Robin is exclusively for boys.
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Maybe because Robin, in English, is also a bird (French “rouge-gorge”=red breast).
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I might have mentioned this before but when my (not-yet-) wife was a college freshman, there was a male freshman with her exact first and last name.
Hilarity, as you might expect, ensued.
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Hilarity, as you might expect, ensued.
And wouldn’t it be even more so if both were named Hilary?
(And I can’t remember where, but wasn’t there a story or at least trope about twins named Hilary and Tristram? And would be seen as typically inhabiting moods, happy and sad.)
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There’s ‘Jean qui grogne et Jean qui rit’ by Comtesse de Ségur, but they’re cousins, not twins.
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So many names that started out as boy names are girl names now. Like Bambi.
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Unca $crooge says (in https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/b-a-im-your-sunday-girl-and-your-dimanche-fille/#comments ) :
More so in Robyn Hitchcock’s “commetujours”
Note a male ‘Robyn’ in case you were still wondering about that 4th corner of the grid.
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