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[Opinions] PLEASE KEEP IN MIND...
That I do not have the intellectual capacity as most of you do on the history of names. I was just thinking about this name the other day when I saw it on a post for favorite male names... considering that I have ONLY heard it on girls... which surprised me... for 34 years, I have always thought it was a girls name... so I am sure you can imagine my shock. After reading the meaning of it on this website (because I still did not believe it), I had to ask all of your opinions. So by no means did I mean to make anyone angry/annoyed/frustrated by my question. I would hope you could understand where I was coming from and my ignorance on this name.Also, the other names I have suggested that I think are traditionally girls names but used on boys... is again, from personal experience and ignorance. That's why I rely on you all to educate me.And as far as using "soft" goes... I find (and in my opinion as this is an opinion board) there are male names to me that do not sound like they fit with other male names.... and vice versa for girls names that sound too harsh to me... if you want to classify that as sexist... go ahead... because that is the way I feel. I cannot apologize for my opinion, as it still stands the same way... but I am more than happy to be educated by you all on the background of names and learn of their history. Ignorance about the facts can be changed... but the opinion might take a little longer.
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No problemI love the range of opinions we get on this board, and I'm cool with it. I certainly wouldn't claim to have any kind of expertise on names in general; I guess Tristan is just one of the ones I feel strongly about.I think it's a little odd that you met/came across only female Tristans for however long, given that I've never even heard of one, but hey. Weirder things have happened. I imagine that if I was suddenly informed that something I'd always thought was a female name was actually masculine it'd be pretty strange.Everyone has names that they think are too soft or too hard, or don't fit. I'll never quite be able to get my head around Leto being feminine, for instance. I'm sorry if I overreacted; it's just that Tristan happens to be one that I literally never imagined could be feminine until relatively recently. All the associations I have are male.Also, because I have Wikipedia open:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan - Sir Tristanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_and_Iseult - The romance of Tristan and Iseult out of which have been madehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_und_Isolde - The Wagner opera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_%26_Isolde_%28film%29 - The film with James Franco in itI can't say I'm much of an opera fan and I've yet to see the film, but the story of Tristan and Iseult (or Yseult, or Isolde, or Isond) is one of my favourite stories from the King Arthur corpus. Sir Tristan is a wonderful character.
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Thanks for the references... when I have time tonight, will definitely go through them.I lived in So Cal for 19 years, and there was a senior girl in my high school (when I was a freshman) who's name was Tristan Paige... her other siblings were: Demri (girl), Tasmin (girl), Chase (boy), and another weird T girl name that I cannot remember. As you can see, she came from a unique family... but this girl impressed me as she had it all... looks, brains, talent, sweet and kind... etc... so I began to adore the name Tristan after her. She had a niece named after her... so these are the only two girls I have ever known that have this name. Then I moved to Utah... and there are NO Tristan's (boys or girls) that I know of... as you can imagine, Utah is a culture shock from So Cal, and everyone seems to do whatever everyone else does here... so we have an over abundance of Emma's, Jacob's, and names that have been combined (ie Jennalynn)... so there is not much variety here.Thanks for the further education.
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And by-the-way...I have never heard of Tristan and Isolde (sp?) or the knights that everyone seems to talk about. See what happens when you don't pay attention in school? :)
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It's a movie too.Seriously, I recommend watching it. It's very good. It's basically an Arthurian version of Romeo and Juliet. I can almost guarantee you will never think of Tristan as a feminine name again after seeing it.
It's just called Tristan and Isolde.
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