There has been some discussion lately regarding the gender orientation of the name, Bailey. Although Bailey came to us already named, I feel somewhat of a responsibility to defend his name, and that it is definitely a boy name.
It has been my experience in life that Bailey is a boy name. Apparently it has become increasingly popular for girls, as well. However, whenever I hear the name, I think boy. A lot of people think girl.
Because there are so many other things to research in life, I looked up the name Bailey on The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager. According to this website, the name Bailey was being assigned to little boys as early as the 188o's. However, that is as close as I get to winning the argument that Bailey is primarily a boy name.
I verified information on the Social Security website (which is a very unlikely place to find history of a given name's popularity over the years...very helpful for any of my friends expecting children or expect to be expecting children). In 1996, the year Bailey was born, it was the 200th most popular name for boys. In 2005, the popularity of Bailey for boys dropped to the 512th spot.
Further research shows that Bailey remains a more popular moniker for girls over boys. In 1996, the name was the 85th most popular girl name, and in 2005, it was the 108th. Now, I do not know what the ratio of male births to female births was for either of those years, but I willing to concede to the opposing argument. I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong only after and in-depth investigation has taken place and insurmountable evidence points to that conclusion. Let it be known that Bailey was not my first name for a dog, but it beats out the names of some of the dogs I was looking at adopting: "Cooney," "Icey," or "Tula." What's nice about the name Bailey is that it rhymes with "baby," which Bailey equally responds to. I think our Bailey fits his name perfectly -- regardless of its gender origination.
I am left with one more question, though. What about Scott Wolf's character in the series "Party of Five" from the nineties? His name was Bailey and he was a very cute boy!
