Do there exist male names that derive from female names in English?

Demetrius is the best example that I know of. This name seems to have been derived in Greek (in the form Δημήτριος) from the name Demeter (Δημήτηρ). Demeter is not in common use in English as a name for mortal female beings, but I think most educated English speakers would recognize it as a female name—albeit the name of a Greek goddess.

I learned about this from a comment written by A. M. Bittlingmayer on a similar Linguistics SE question: In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?


In modern English there are some traditionally masculine names that derive from feminine names by way of surnames. Emmett is a fairly well-know example: it started as the feminine name Emma, took the Norman-French diminutive -ett(e), then became a surname, and from there was adopted as a given name primarily for boys (all links are to BehindtheName.com, which is a fairly well-sourced internet resource for Western naming origins).

Evelyn and Madison took almost identical paths (from feminine given names Avila and Maude, respectively, to diminutives Aveline and Maddy to surnames Evelyn and Madison (Maddy's son) to masculine given name), but both have also since been "reclaimed" as feminine given names.

Merrill is also derived from a surname, some instances of which were likely from the feminine given name Muriel. Moreover, Merle can be a variant of both Merrill and Muriel directly (but it is used for both men and women, and it could be that most or all of the Merles-ex-Muriel are female).

Dwight is a marginal case; it comes from a feminine given name (again, via surname) but that given name was itself ultimately a feminization of Dionysius, the Latinate form of masculine name Διονυσιος.

There are also a few surnames-turned-given-name that originally derived from female occupations: Baxter was originally the term for a female baker and Brewster was a female brewer (though not all the families with these surnames would have been named after a matriarch). Some other occupation names ending in -ster or -xter might also reflect a female worker at the root of some families' trees.

In addition to these traditional examples, modern naming trends are conducive to new coinages of male names based on female names, in the model of Josephine for Joseph. At least one Jaden is famously named for his mother, Jada Pinkett Smith (and his sister, Willa, is named for their father, Will Smith). This name is generally taken to be a modern invention riffing on the general rhymes-with-Aidan trend, but at least in this case it is clearly derived from a feminine name. I expect in the future there will be more examples of genuine masculine-versions of feminine names, as some of the more creative cross-gender namesakes become mainstream.