gayest man's name

My sister (SF attorney) and I have been arguing with my unrelentingly conservative dad via email about CA Prop 8. It's been going on for about three weeks now off and on. Yesterday she had him read this article about the inherent inequalities between domestic partnerships and marriage. He responded with:

Jan is an interesting name. The whining about the terms "husband and wife" below makes me wonder if Jan wants to be known as a husband or a wife. And would Jan's partner be a husband, or a wife? Under the current law they can call themselves whatever they want to at their wedding ceremony (husband and husband or wife and wife or husband and wife). I don't see any problem with that.

Here's the thing though: his name is Gary, so I kinda want to point out to him that homophobic guys who have arguably the gayest man's name in the history of western civilization maybe shouldn't be commenting on the sexual ambiguity of other people's names? Is there a "gayer" man's name than Gary? Maybe Bruce?

How about "Gay?"

yah gaylord

henrymosexual

I think the names Bruce and Lance are historically identified with gay men, although it's not something you hear much anymore.

julian
quentin

xxxxp Gay is a woman's name. Ask legendary Australian horse trainer Gay Waterhouse.

Christian

Francis

Llewelyn however you spell it

irish singer Gay Woods has a lol name

i think Gary is super gay

laurence

Debbie

Standrogynous

Wayne

I actually have an aunt whose mom's name is Gay Mann.

HOMER: They ruined all our best names like Bruce and Lance and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had! Now they’re just...

JOHN: Queer?

http://i35.tinypic.com/ncyro0.jpg

I mean c'mon dad the G here does not stand for George.

Johnson saw fit to change the name of the Hulk's comic book alter ego, Dr. (Robert) Bruce Banner, to "Dr. David Banner" for the t.v. series. This change was made, according to Johnson, because he did not want the series to be perceived as a comic book series, so he wanted to change what he felt was a staple of comic books, and Stan Lee's comics in particular, that major characters frequently had alliterative names. On the DVD commentary of the pilot of The Incredible Hulk, Johnson also says that it was a way to honor his late son David. However, according to Stan Lee, Universal changed the name because "Bruce Banner" sounded, in the eyes of the network, like a "gay character" name, and David sounded much better ("Bruce" ultimately became the TV Banner's middle name, as it had been in the comics. It is visible on David's tombstone at the end of the pilot episode).

"All gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve."

i wouldn't have picked out Gary as a particularly gay name. otoh, the only Gary i know is my gay cousin, so...

no further witnesses your honor

"All gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve."

Oddly enough, several websites erroneously quote this as "Bruce, Rick, or Steve."

(I do know a gay couple named Mark and Rick, however.)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E5D91138F934A15755C0A967948260

"query"

I AM NOT GAY

People always use "Patrick" for comedy purposes. And to be completely honest, I'm pretty sure the bulk of men I've known who went by Patrick were gay.

"All gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve."

Oddly enough, several websites erroneously quote this as "Bruce, Rick, or Steve."

(I do know a gay couple named Mark and Rick, however.)

Oh, I was in the play - I'm pretty sure it was Mark!

Although that's not a large sample set, and I'm not sure what one would imagine straight Patricks going by instead -- Rick or Pat, I guess, but I don't know a single Rick and haven't known a Pat in a long time, so I'm not sure how that enters into it.

Kind of along the lines of what Nabisco said, I've noticed that a lot of my gay friends go by their full names instead of nicknames like Patrick v. Pat. All of the men I know who go by Steven rather than Steve, for instance, are gay.

XPOST YAY: I've found that gay men use full names rather than nicknames more often than straight men do. I can think of only person I've known who's gone by Patrick (instead of Pat), and yes, he was gay. Same goes for Thomas and Christopher.

boston w/all the irishes is full of pats

the rick i know = straight

the four pats i know = straight straight straight bi

the gary i (sorta) know = gayer than christmas

i know two gay dudes named "tomás"

lol the bi pat actually goes by "patrick" usually i think

i live next door to two gays who are both named patrick. neither one goes by pat.

We're totally onto something here.

i know one patrick. he is a gay patrick.

WAIT! 2...

oh no nm i know straight patricks too

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Karl_the_Simpsons.png/200px-Karl_the_Simpsons.png
Don't judge me, love me!

This thread is going to devolve into searching Facebook for guys named Patrick, posting their pictures, and speculating about their sexuality

Judge
Law

oh no nm i know straight patricks too

― rent, Friday, December 5, 2008 4:31 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ones that go by "Patrick" rather than "Pat"?

i usually go by "joe" and not joseph but i don't mind the latter at all

yes. though their both irish and v v private...

I will say, to ruin things, that one of my best gay friends goes by Pat.

But yeah, I agree with the stereotype/trend of gay men using full names. (The trend part being that it does seem to play out sometimes, the stereotype part being that it's also a caricature, and partly a caricature of gay men being somehow "fussy" enough to use full names instead of bro-ed out straight-guy nicknames or whatever.)

gay dude that i work with goes by "eddie" instead of "edward"

i've always hated "joey" (going back to ca. kindergarten)

I know a gay Bob and a gay Larry.

Dan, I believe those are the names of the gay-couple friends on Will & Grace, so, umm, I dunno

i've always hated "joey" (going back to ca. kindergarten)

― lol cool j (donna rouge), Friday, December 5, 2008 4:37 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes only my good friends are allowed to call me this and only in a funny voice

i always thought of hank as a pretty gay name

if the shakespeare theorists are correct, antonio

I'm sure if we went through common male names we could actually stereotype exactly which ones were "gay" to shorten and which ones were "gay" to have in full, Larry being one of the former, for some reason. I would say this was pointless stereotyping but I'd actually imagine that (straight) men's choices of which form of their name to go with are often informed by their senses that one version seems "gay!"

hank imo is an awesome olde timey broed out name

larry is not one of the former

lawrence is way gayer than larry!

Aw, joey is kind of cute. I've always wanted a nickname but you can't really shorten Erica.

I love the name Henry/Hank!

i have a second cousin named hank and hes not very gay

the most flamboyantly gay guy i know is named rob.

laurence > lawrence > larry where quantity is measured in gay

hank imo is an awesome olde timey broed out name

a lot of these old-timey 'masculine' names like bruce and hank and wayne and gary are way gay

Yeah I don't think of Larry as being gay at all! Lawrence on the other hand is gay or extremely rich and WASPy.

Or both.

Barry is pretty gay

I am calling the precedent of Will & Grace writers on Larry, sorry -- "Lawrence" to me smacks of white-haired be-suited men like Lawrence Summers or Lawrence O'Donnell, though I do see how on a young man it might strike some straight folks as "gay" to go with a full Lawrence.

i disagree with barry also

lawrence also has a nice "s" sound to help affect a lisp

barack is way gayer than barry

i mean muslimer, not gayer

The only non English/Irish Barry I've known is my mother's former haidresser who was the first gay man I ever knew and sadly passed away from AIDS in the late 80s. :-( Her next hairdresser was named Donald.

"a full lawrence" sounds like a gay wrestling move

ooh sorry xpost

There's a gay film critic in Chicago named Hank Sartin.

If it helps, the gay Larry I know is a Lawrence.

the all-time gayest homosexual i have ever met is named leon

agree on larry. lawrence weiner = decidedly not gay

If I ever have a son I think Henry is my favorite name for a boy because a little baby/toddler named Henry is just adorable and Hank is an awesome nickname for an adult!

the one leon i know is pre-op

Jeffrey.

The scientific approach is to find the gayest man, then ask him his name, no?

That would be Brian, then.

(Based off of unscientific data ie a guy I knew in college)

(has anyone else been unconsciously sounding out these names in their head with a gayish inflection?)

very consciously

Based on Oilyrags strategy . . .

Fred?

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0bPibrD0v9b5x/340x.jpg

ooh ooh holly johnson lol

I think Brian might be the goyist man's name, which is a different thing.

goyest

i know a gay jeff and if yr an older bearish guy who lives in the bay area plz get in touch w him, he would love to meet you

the all-time gayest homosexual i have ever met is named leon

Oooh, at my first temp job after college, I worked with a tiny, eccentric homosexual named Leon. He discovered I was new to Chicago and a vegetarian like him, so he decided to give me some restaurant recommendations by photocopying pages from the phone book and highlighting the good restaurants. The last time I saw him was coming out of Vintage Vinyl in Evanston about five years ago where he'd bought like a Dream Syndicate record or something.

parents dont know their child is going to be gay before they name them.
also, bruce is a cool name and lots of steves are gay.

xp Also, Martin Mull's character on Roseanne was named Leon.

parents dont know their child is going to be gay before they name them.

YOU DON'T SAY.

parents dont know their child is going to be gay before they name them.

xpost - No shit, really?

lol

I think I pissed my dad off. I guess I'll find out at xmas.

I think it's well acknowledged that we're in the realm of mostly meaningless stereotypes here, but seriously, parents don't get to make decisions about which forms of their names grown sons will wind up using, and there's totally a personal aesthetic to that choice.

on another note, I think brad is the evilest man's name

the gayest man's name i know is adam insofar as i know more gay adams (2) than i do any other name

Haha everyone make your calls on Bradley now

brad as in probably the doughiest, most suburban and innocuous name ever? evil fratboys at most no?

Bradley = v v gay.

I know two gay Adams but about five straigt ones.

I know a gay Brad! I also know a straight Brad whom we suspect is gay.

I know an inordinate number of gay Brians, now that I think about it. Like, five or six.

since we're on adam, how about steve?

i know more gay adams (2) than i do any other name

there is a gay brian in my med school class (which is unique in that med school isn't traditionally a place one finds a lot of gays, i don't think?)

lol u want steve on adam? xps

xxpost - LOL sorry about that. Let's try it again:

i know more gay adams (2) than i do any other name

gbx, i think my ex-bf in med school knows maybe one other gay guy in his class (of like, 100 maybe?)

didnt know med school was a bastion of macho culture what with their nursing old ladies back to health and such

i don't know what it is, actually! medicine actually IS sorta macho in that most docs were men up until the last few decades.

i bet that hanging out with gay people is a good way to learn some manners

I knew a couple named Adam and Steve. Actually, I knew their neighbor, who was gay. And named Jason, which is not a particularly gay name, I don't think.

yeah none of the jasons i know are gay. some of them are total dicks, tho, fwiw

(i don't think i know any gay guys named dick) (or rod)

lol I know at least two gay Jasons

Not to mess with a funny thread, or anything, but it's kind of weird (and kind of bad) how there's this public face of "conventional gay man" revolving around a specific kind of self-presentation, and then we think of probably the bulk of actual gay men as not presenting themselves in a particularly "gay" way -- yadda yadda yadda, we all know this and are just kidding around, I know ...

... but that's just preface to saying that honestly, I think the using-the-full-name thing is just a function of ... well, most anyone using a full common name instead of the usual nickname is someone who is at least not trying to present himself in the usual guyish mode. (Enforcement of masculinity is such that a guy who says "I'm Bradley" instead of just Brad is making some small risky statement about self-presentation, in a lot of circumstances.) Going outside of that could correlate with any number of things, and I don't think it at all correlates with "gay," but it does probably correlate with that standard visible image of gayness, and thus will probably match up with the gay men you know who you think of as somehow "particularly" gay (which all that means is that they fit an identifiable public image of gay) ...

^^ haha I feel a need to acknowledge all this because if we were having this thread with "black" instead of "gay" I would kinda be annoyed, so there is some hypocrisy going on here with me

^^^ for an example of this see our president

In fairness, nabisco, if we were having this thread with "black" instead of "gay", instead of saying "Rick" and "Steve" people would be saying "TaiShawne" and "D'Andrelo", which is a lot more annoying since THOSE AREN'T EVEN NAMES.

Wait, I think I missed this the first time, but Mr. Que's real name is Gary?

don't know any gay barrys

I am gay (but not black) and my name happens to be D'Andrelo.

gary que

D'Andrelo, the gay white ex-con

Yeah, although I'm not trying to wet-blanket here, or anything, because I know everyone's aware of this and it's basically in fun and the gay-male community tends to have as much of a sense of humor about this kind of typing as anyone

xpost - haha, yes, Dan, I was thinking more about statements like "oh this guy Antoine is the blackest guy I know," which would ring a whole bunch of bells about defining what blackness is. (Difference being that I totally trust everyone here is talking about a specific gay image in a totally different and conscious and non-bad way.)

really amazed that the thread has gotten this far without one mention of RANDY or ROGER

wait was amazing randy gay?????????

haha, yes, Dan, I was thinking more about statements like "oh this guy Antoine is the blackest guy I know," which would ring a whole bunch of bells about defining what blackness is.

Yeah, I agree with that; I just wanted to make the "D'Andrelo" joke.

D'Andrelo, the gay white ex-con

You got it man! btw, being gay really helps with the prison thing.

I have totally different mid-American associations with "Randy"

Possibly best summed up by Randy Quaid in the Vacation movies

agreed that the premise of the thread is kinda stupid but hey there are some faggy-ass names out there, i don't think anyone can refute that

Results 1 - 10 of about 102 for "d'andrelo". (0.13 seconds)

omg i was trying to think of randy ffs

it's not gary

Did you mean to search for: d'angelo

i mean isn't this thread ppl thinking of gay ppl they know, ranking them according to some vague gayness quotient, and then typing their name in. like what is the tallest man's name and i'd be like "nolan" because that motherfucker is tall as hell

TRISTAN
JASPER
LESLIE

nono some names are gayer than others, this is science

elmo those names are more foppish than gay

i know three tristans and none of the are gay! altho T3 rides a pink bike, wears white glasses, and makes jokes about making out with his bros all the time when he's drunk at parties

wait

he's been lying to you

Maybe the thing that makes it non-annoying is that lots of people's public-image sense of "gay man" is like a pleasant, slightly fussy guy in a funny shirt who makes lots of catty jokes and is jolly and nice to everyone, which is really not so bad, as images go.

xpost - OMG I met a baby Jasper last night, named after a character in a novel I just read, which character is ... not a character I'd feel comfortable naming a kid after, given that the whole novel's about how he was slightly warped by his insane father

i did a research project on names and naming in HS and I had this book that poll-ranked hundreds of names based on perceived qualities including masculinity/feminiity -- might be useful if you want to really get into it here

nah, we'll just ask jaymc

lol some friends named their kid Jasper and I, without thinking, said, "Well that's a name that will make him very tough due to all of the playground ass-whipping."

elmo those names are more foppish than gay

split hairs if you must

i did a research project on names and naming in HS and I had this book that poll-ranked hundreds of names based on perceived qualities including masculinity/feminiity -- might be useful if you want to really get into it here

― the magic length of god (elmo argonaut), Friday, December 5, 2008 4:40 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nah, we'll just ask jaymc

― Tanganyika laughter epidemic (gbx), Friday, December 5, 2008 4:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ha, yeah, I would really like more info on that, Elmo.

first result for "gayest man's name" (w/o quotes) via google is this thread
ONLY result w/ quotes is this thread

with great power comes great responsibility

i'll see if i can track down the title -- it was already really dated by the time i read it but i seem to recall that "bunny" was the most feminine female name and "abraham" one of the most masculine. shockah.

now we owe it to the WORLD to be the foremost authority on which names are the gayest

where do people stand on "oliver" (no diminutive)

my nephew is an oliver - its a little cutesy imo

Would you believe the fellow on the left is named Abraham.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/29401898_61171b5ae1.jpg?v=0

Tom of Finland

also honest abe was a gay homo as everyone knows

also he had marfan's

just sayin

more like gayfan's

those two upthread are like a bizarro-world version of Nick and Buzz

Gotta say I always have felt a certain pity for straight men who go by Bruce because it just does sound hella gay to me. I wonder what the names in other cultures are that have this resonance; would French people have similar conversations about Cyrile vs. Yves or Swedish people about Ragnar vs. Jens etc.

also he had marfan's

Like gay indie rocker Bradford Cox.

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

RAGNARRRRRRRRRRRRR

I hear "Bruce" and just think of Autralians and/or 1970s cologne-drenched hairy-chested manly-men (before that read as "gay")

russian gay name free association roulette

should I have put commas after every word

Robin

oh oh, i got a good one -- i just remembered one of my gay neighbors -- one of two co-habitating gay brothers, but anyway -- and he is named CLAUDE

although there are a few names i can think of that are so sissy at first glance but tend to be the nicknames of very staid, white, buttoned-up country-club types, q.v. any man nicknamed "bunny"

Yeah, you show me a guy called "Bunny," I will show you a guy I imagine as having boxed in prep school

WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT ME NABISCO

http://openlettersmonthly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/edmund-wilson-1936.jpg

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/img/castcrew/character_season04/bunnycolvin.jpg

Ha, I love the ep when Namond finds out that Mr. Colvin goes by "Bunny" and is told in no uncertain terms not to repeat it.

"All gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve."
http://images.gocomics.com/images/doonesbury/strip/thecast/mark2.jpg

I am not gay. Much. But yeah, Brian.

I was once at a Rotary Club meeting with my grandad and this lady did a speech on women in the church ministry and her name was Gay Priest. Much lols in the room.

i know two gay dudes named "tomás"

― beyonc'e (max), Friday, December 5, 2008 9:28 PM (Yesterday)

haha! this is my middle name!

http://www.rsa.ie/ABOUT_US/upload/Image/076.JPG

Mary

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Gabriel Mary "Gay" Byrne (born 5 August 1934) is an Irish broadcaster. He was the presenter of the Late Late Show, from 1962 to 1999 except for one year.[1] He also presented a regular morning radio show on RTE. He is credited with being a catalyst in the transformation of Irish Society since the 1960s.[2] He broke many Irish social taboos by discussing many topics like contraception, homosexuality, and abortion.

ok that is hands down the gayest name ever

"uncle Gaybo"

I have never thought Gary to be a "gay" name. Bruce I can kind of see, I suppose, and certainly Ricky (or, uh, Steve apparently).

¯\(°_o)/¯

Tiarnán sounds pretty homo though ZING!!

^zinged

love the way the most revered Irish TV personality of all time was actually lovingly called "uncle gaybo" for his entire career. what a seriously fucked up country we are.

'feminine' / fussy names - Claude, Julian, Quentin, Gaylord - obviously sound like 'gay names'

names that are really quite masculine - mainly Bruce (which is big Aussie bloke name), possibly Lance too - maybe become 'gay' by inversion or because they're so masculine, in same way that one gay stereotype = bodybuilding, moustache

but beyond that, it's implausible to say that very average names like Steve, Patrick or, for goodness' sake, Gary are gay names. No way is Gary a gay name in the UK - along with Wayne and Darren it's the male equivalent of shop-girl names like Sharon and Tracey. ie: very average, Ford Cortina stuff, nothing gay about it.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j18/Buzgen/Gary/0205ys.jpg

I just realised, most of the REALLY gay guys I know don't even USE male names. Otherwise gayest is Alex, I guess.

Oscar.

Stephen.

George.

Gok.

Dale.

Wanda

Actually what am I talking about, the gayest name is obviously Elton.

ctrl-f "dave"

I really doubt there's a gayer name for a guy than Wanda, tbh

Gary Barlow is not gay.

Is Wanda a man's name? I'd like to meet a woman called Wanda, actually.

She'll have a dick

Every Sebastian I know is gay.

Did this thread ever truly discover who the gayest man is?

Jonathan!

Gabriel Mary "Gay" Byrne

Oh, Mary!

isnt "mary" slang for a gay dude? like that scissor sisters song?

like in Falling Down..."take it easy Mary"

"this was actually uuuuused"

and in the bible too