Brylla, Eva2010-03-112010-03-112009Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences978-1-55014-521-2http://hdl.handle.net/10315/3621A recent contribution to the discussion about equality between the sexes in Sweden concerns the question of whether given names should be related to biological sex. The usual pattern of given names in the Germanic world involves a pronounced difference between female and male names. Eliminating this sextyped naming custom would have a radical impact on the language. One function of given names is to individualize. They serve a practical purpose. Gender-neutral names may for obvious reasons create problems. In some countries, unisex names are even forbidden. The question is whether abolishing sex-typed given names would in practice promote equality between the sexes. Unisex names often tend to evolve from masculine to unisex to feminine names. Sex stereotyping is more rigidly applied to boys than to girls. It is by no means certain that boys will be given female names as frequently as girls are given male ones.enThe following articles are © 2009 with the individual authors. They are made available free of charge from this page as a service to the community under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative Works license version 3.0. For full details go to http://creativecommons.org.licenses/ny-nd.3.0Female Names and Male NamesPersonal Names in SwedenArticle