So, I happen to have the peculiar situation of having a name better suited to someone of the female persuasion. One could even say that my name is more feminine than other female names. That Ashley is more of a name that one would imagine christened upon some imagined and perfect girlfriend or wife, stripper, mistress, whatever and in most cases all the above rolled into one, when it comes to what men want.
However, one might consider, why is Ashley a name given to females now, instead of males? More importantly, how the hairy hell did I get Ashley as my name?

There is no special association in meaning, with a feminine nature in the name Ashley.
In fact, here is etymology of the Ashley:

ASHLEY
Gender: Feminine & Masculine
Usage: English
Pronounced: ASH-lee
From an English surname which was originally derived from a place name meaning “ash tree clearing” in Old English. Until the 1960s it was more commonly given to boys in the United States, but it is now most often used on girls.

Commonly given to boys until the 1960s? I was born in 1971, so, perhaps I was the tail end of males named Ashley. Actually, however there is a clearer answer. My mom. Yep, my mom the reader. My mom the movie lover. My mom who loved “Gone With the Wind” a lot. Almost as much as I like Star Wars. So, I end up being named after a literary character, Ashley Wilkes. Oddly enough, I end up being a librarian. A librarian named after a literary character. I suppose that’s fitting and all. Thankfully I didn’t end up as a Confederate War major. Although, I have never been particularly good at business like Ashley Wilkes. Plus, I can honestly say that I never married a cousin.

Why Ashley though? I mean, I’ve read the book, I forgot for what reason, but I read it. I watched the movie. Enjoyed both the book and the movie. Yet Ashley was so…boring. Sure Scarlet was obsessed with him and all, but she didn’t seem to have her head on straight about things to begin with. Why not Rhett? Maybe because he was a scoundrel? I suppose Ashley was a better man than Rhett, but not nearly as fun. A scoundrel? Would you name your child Han? I guess he would be a different type of scoundrel. I don’t think Rhett would have stuck around when the Imperials and the Death Star focused in on Yavin IV. I’m pretty sure Rhett would have told Leia to go fuck herself.

Speculating even further, if I ever have a daughter, I could try to convince Christina to name her Leia Scarlet. Or would it be Leia Melanie? Or, since Ashley has morphed into a girl’s name, could I name her Ashley? Would she be a Jr.? The R in Ashley R stands for Romeo. Enough giggling. Bastards. It is supposed to have a Spanish pronunciation, however. Ashley Juliet? Or just to carry on tradition, give my imagined future daughter a male first name. Like Jake. That should make everyone happy.

I spent my elementary school years in Laredo, Texas. Even then Ashley was already getting popular as a girls name. In Laredo, it was just a strange name, not really associated with any gender at all, so I didn’t get much grief for it. However, in elementary, in fact, kindergarten, my friends would always shorten Ashley to Ash. I always wonder if other female Ashley’s end up becoming Ashes too? Add fire and ashes joke.

In middle school and high school it wasn’t much of an issue either. Mostly, it was “You don’t look like an Ashley” sometimes followed by, are you Italian or Jewish? I used to get a little miffed that I had the Hispanic last name, but somehow, I was something other than Hispanic. I’ve learned however, that there is a good portion of my ancestry that was indeed Jewish, thrown out of Spain and landing smack dab in the badlands of Northern Mexico, or as we call it, south Texas. Mazel Tov!? All this time. Who knew? I wonder if I have Italian background too? I could have tried out for the Sopranos!

Having a girls name has had some benefits however. No, not the free issues of Latina magazine, which, either by joke or by accident, I have twice had a year long subscription, paid for by…somebody, friend or foe, I know not. Nor is it a boon to me, the free samples of feminine products that come in the mail.

No, what has benefited me the most is a brief and limited idea of what women sometimes have to put up with. This particular insight was gleaned when I first started to use the Internet, in particular, the chat functions, when they first became available, sometime in the early 1990’s. At the time, I had an account at UTSA, that when you logged on to various IRC chat channels, your name was part of your internet address. So, I could pick whichever name I wanted, Bob, Mike, Rocky, I still had Ashley as my internet name.
It wasn’t so much the constant private messages, thinking I was a female, it was the constant, ugly, moronic, simple minded, garbage that being anonymous on the Internet provokes. Is this what women have to endure I would think to myself? If I was female, would I be turned on by the idiotic dirty talk? Would I really have an urge to suck on anything from some half-wit frat boy? Were the words being used, if I was indeed female, designed so as to unlock some deep primal urge that I wouldn’t be able to resist? Don’t get me wrong, I can be as dirty as anyone in the use of language. In fact, I’m quite good at it, if the truth be known. However, there is a time for such language and there is a time when otherwise, using such, you simply fail. You fail at your awkward attempt at being interesting. You fail at your inability to use your mind for even so much as a filter. Lastly and more importantly, you fail at being much of a human being. You managed to retain all the negative qualities of an out of control animal, with the unfortunate ability of retaining your ability to be a tool user.

Do women have to go through this all the time? Yuck. To an extent, I already knew males could be crude animals. Nor am I even declaring that I myself free from being some moronic beast in the line-up above. That particularly time for me really made me wonder about my fellow brethren, made me think about myself. I had always been up until recently, painfully shy, being an anonymous person on the Internet helped me be closer to normal, but I don’t think I was ever so hideously crude as the men I encountered. Plus, I couldn’t exclude females, because I did have messages from females, thinking I too was female and for whatever reason, thinking I was interested in other females (well, there were obvious signs that I was interested in other women). Their private messages had almost the same amount of “dirt” as the males did. Except for one huge difference; the messages from other women were sensual and erotic, while those from the men were mostly just disgusting. I did occasionally have messages from women that were stupid and crude and from men that not only were polite, but also displayed a depth of sensuality about them. Unfortunately, those messages were few and far between. Perhaps it was just the newness of the technology? Perhaps women just have a better way with language? I would like to think so anyway. Otherwise, there are a lot of sick fucks that display a charming mask in person and wait until nobody is watching them to display what they really are.

It was also quite a learning experience in dealing with people in E-mail versus in person, in all manner of interaction. I never had anyone ever get angry with me, I think partially because nobody likes the idea that they made assumptions that had nothing to do with facts. I also think and have been told, that I have an intimidating look. In some instances, where I was treated in a condensing and patronizing manner, in person, all of a sudden, I would be treated with much more respect. All of sudden, I went from being a dumb little girl, to a big smart man. Nothing changed about who or what I was. What credentials or skills I had or did not have remained the same. The only thing that changed was an assumption that I had an F in a box labeled sex and in which many times, the box was ignored over my name.
There have been other instances however, that were reversed. Instead of expecting some smart, brash, young lady to come in, what they got was some big ox that obviously couldn’t be particularly smart nor have anything of note to say or think. I wish I could say I never have experienced my name being a disappointment to someone of any sex, but that would be untruthful. All of us have expectations, even sometimes expectations that come with a name. When those expectations are not met or are much different that expected, I guess some people react, poorly.

There are funnier instances with my name of course. My wife Christina and I make an incredibly hot sounding lesbian couple in the phone listing. Plus, sometimes it is fun to surprise people with my name. I would suspect in my line of work, most people either think little of my name or find it comically ironic that such a feminine name, in a field of mostly women, belongs to someone such as me.

I protest sometimes about my name, but really, it ended up being a good thing. Sometimes I find it funny, sometimes, exasperating. Sometimes I wish I was Rhett, sometimes, I’m glad I’m an Ashley. I can never understand what it is like to be a woman, but I can have a slight inkling. I think to myself thanks to my name I have insight I otherwise might not have. When Christina whispers my name to me, in a moment only meant for each other, is one such very good occasion. True, any name I had been given would be equally as sweet to hear, but perhaps with the name christened me, I try a little harder and appreciate it a little more. And perhaps, just perhaps, somewhere down the line, someone has learned that a name is just a name and it takes a person to actually give it any true meaning.