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Re: Nebraska names on Momaha.com
I hope you're right about young Master Sophia, but you might not be. I once knew a woman from a conservative Afrikaans family whose given names were Andries Gerhardus Philippus; it turned out that she had a grandfather with those names and it was "his turn" to hand them on to the next grandchild to be born, regardless of gender. Which is no doubt also why they weren't changed into something like Andrea (or Andriesa) Gerhardina Philippa,which would still be a heavy weight but at least not confusing.
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I think you are forgetting that because of sexism it is not that unusual for girls to get "boy's" names. If all the gender differences were in the male to female direction, I wouldn't necessarily think they were mistakes. But boys with "girl's" names are much, much rarer. It really is impossible for me to believe that a boy listed with a traditionally female name is "real" unless I have further evidence. :)
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