Talk:Ryan (given name)

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Anthroponymy

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Importance[edit]

top importance - based on evidence that the name was the most popular forename in Scotland for the five years of 1994–1998 --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gender confusion[edit]

Ryan is also given to females occisonally in recent times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chomeara (talk • contribs) 13:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Did you know' candidate?[edit]

I believe this article is a WP:DYK candidate as it has expanded from list to article status today, an expansion that meets that "5-fold expansion" criterion for non-new articles to be considered. I don't think it's kosher for me to nominate my own work for consideration. The process for nomination appears at Template talk:Did you know and Wikipedia:DYK#How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the Main Page. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan as a first name[edit]

"The name originated in Ireland, presumably from the Ryan surname"

That is not the way surnames usually work in Ireland. If anything, it is more likely to be the other way around, as a surname in Ireland traditionally derives from the first name of an ancestor (e.g. McMahon = son of Mahon, O'Connor = grandson/descendent of Connor). As a result, many Irish names are both first names and surnames.

"Presumably from the Ryan surname" should be removed until evidence is produced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.40.18 (talk) 09:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, it refers specifically to the spelling of the surname Ryan, which is an Anglicised form of the Irish surname Ó Riain. So, as a given name, Ryan doesn't come from the Irish personal name, Rian; it comes specifically from the Anglicised form of the Irish surname Ó Riain. I've got a good ref, and will do some rewording. It's confusing trying to explain here. I understand what you meant though, that's how it seems to work normally, you're right there.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 11:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

male/female[edit]

The mention of the name being for both genders has been removed a couple times now. It is obviously appropriate for it to be listed as both male & female. The section for "United States" explicitly mentions the use as a female name, and the site https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi shows it ranked 474th most common female baby name in 2015 (within the USA), and shows it has ranked between 435th and 642nd most common female baby name in the USA every year for the last 15 years. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:19, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and have reverted the infobox from "male" to "unisex" again. From this chart it seems that "Ryan" took off as a girl's name from about the mid-70s and there are by now about 20,000 female Ryans in the US. JohnCD (talk) 08:27, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it should be listed as a unisex name. Kaldari (talk) 23:38, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another edit today changed the gender to male, the edit summary in part stating "this is about the Irish-derived name". And, yes, if the gender in the infobox is based solely on the origins of the name, then it makes sense that the gender should show male. But, if you look at current common usage (as explained in the above posts), then it makes sense for the gender to show "both" or "unisex". I took a look at the used infobox template, but all it indicates is "Insert the gender of the name. Use either Female, Male, or Both." without specifying if it should be based on origin or current day common usage. As a result, I'll also make a request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy to get comments from participants of that WikiProject. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:53, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's silly to argue that a name can't be listed as unisex if it originated as a male name. Alexis, Allison, Ashley, Aubrey, and Avery all originated as boys' names, but they are all listed as unisex or female on Wikipedia. I've restored "unisex" in the infobox and also restored the deleted information about its popularity as a girls' name. Kaldari (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan also means little king

Etymology[edit]

Collecting some sources for etymology...
Ryan: The common Irish name is a shortened form of Mulryan, itself an English spelling of Ó Maoilriaghain, 'descendant of the devotee of (St) Riaghan'.
— Brewer's dictionary of names (1992), p. 469
Kaldari (talk) 07:02, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]