Ashley who?

By Ashley Duran

Imagine being named after a “refined, exotic, oriental and floral” fragrance called …Raffinée.

That’s right. It was my dad’s idea. Thankfully my mom was opposed to the name and was a Dynasty fan in 1985, while she was pregnant. My middle name, Desireé, which sounds suspiciously similar to Rafineé, was already decided. The character of Lady Ashley Mitchell, played by Ali MacGraw, caught my mom’s attention.

“What about Ashley?” she asked my dad. “Ashley Desireé.”

At the time my mom didn’t realize that I would later be ridiculed because she decided to give me names with initials spelling out “A.D.D.” or attention deficit disorder. She also swears the name Ashley wasn’t popular around the time I was born.

Obviously everyone else’s parents had the same thoughts. According to the Social Security Administration, there were 46,982 Ashley’s born in the United States in 1985, making it the second most popular girls’ name.

Ashley is a unisex surname of English origin, meaning ash tree field or meadow. An unconfirmed story, explaining how the name came about can be found on wikipedia.org, blurtit.com and other online blogs. According to the websites, “The name comes from an ancient Anglo-Saxon legend wherein a lovely young woman was kidnapped by an ogre and imprisoned in an ash tree. Over the years, the tree took on the form of the woman. Her name long since forgotten, she is now only remembered as ‘Ashley.’ ” This mythical tree is said to be located in Devonshire, UK.

Ashley Neal, an English male and student at The University of Arts in Philadelphia, says that in England the name is a somewhat common name for guys.

One of the first references to a male Ashley in the media was in Gone with the Wind, a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The movie introduced several names and Ashley, from the character of George Ashley Wilkes, was one of them.

Up until the 1960s, the now popular feminine name was more commonly given to boys.

“I love my name, it’s different,” Neal says. “In 22 years I’ve never met another male Ashley.” He says that most of his mail comes addressed to Miss or Ms. Ashley Neal. A simple outing to a bar or the bank can be a hassle for him.

“At places like the bank where they see my name and not a picture they think I’m trying to mess with someone’s account,” he says.

Neal estimates that 40 percent of the time he has to show two forms of ID because people tend not to believe that his name is Ashley.

“Somewhere around eighth grade a substitute teacher sent me to the office because she was dead set that I was lying about my name,” he says.

Neal explains that throughout middle and high school he was put on the girl’s team in gym class. He says that for good reason, he never made an effort to change it.

Although the name Ashley originated in the UK, Ashley Popham at Bath University in England says that she has only met one other person with the name and that it’s not popular at all where she lives.

Popham can often be found posting messages on discussion boards on Facebook, in groups such as “A is for Ashley.” She says that it’s interesting to interact with other Ashley’s. The groups were her way of first finding out how popular the name was in the United States.

“Anyone who is fed up with sharing their name so much in the States should move to the UK,” a discussion board quotes Popham as saying.

Ashley Malecha, a student at Bremen University in Germany, agrees.

“It’s totally unheard of in other parts of the world,” she says in an email. “Guys in Europe always think my name is sexy and exotic.”

According to the Social Security Administration, Ashley’s popularity grew rapidly as a feminine first name in the United States in the 1980s.

The rising fame of the name for girls seems to have occurred simultaneously with the introduction of the female character, Ashley Abbott, on the soap opera The Young and The Restless in 1982. The name that was at the No. 17 spot in the United States jumped to No. 4 in 1983.

Ashley Cranidge, student of the University of Ottawa in Ontario, was one of many to be named after the infamous soap opera star. She started the trend of posting a comment if you were named after Ashley Abbott, on the discussion board in “A is for Ashley.” There are currently 11 others who have also posted their anecdotes.

“My mom watched it when she was preggers,” a discussion board quotes Cranidge as saying. “Now I know that my name comes from some slutty TV character married a hundred times.”

I just couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to contribute my soap opera story to the discussion board. No one else had written about Dynasty, only The Young and the Restless. So, I had to do it. I joined the group and played along. After each post I made, someone almost immediately responded. It was weird to see how many postings a day were made by the same people.

One thing is for sure, mentioning the name Ashley can be a great conversation starter. That’s how I learned about sophomore Ashley Benanti’s nickname – Ashtray.

“My friends always call me that and think its funny,” says Benanti, who doesn’t smoke. “But it’s really annoying.”

The name that has been overpopulating the United States is now in danger of getting kicked out of the top 10 baby name list. The trend for girls given the birth name of Ashley peaked at No. 1 in the years 1991 and 1992 and then fell to No. 2 in 1993, continually dropping until reaching its current spot at No. 10.

According to Dale Trusheim, associate director of institutional research and planning at The University of Delaware, there are 167 female students currently registered with the first name of Ashley.

There are also more than 500 global groups like, “All of the Ashley’s!!!! cuz the name Ashley is amazing!!!” and “How many Ashley’s can there be?” on Facebook dedicated to people with the name. This doesn’t even begin to account for people with alternate spellings.

There are at least 22 feminine variations of the name including: Ashlee, Ashleigh, Ashlley, Ashlei, Ashlie, Ashly, Ashli, Ashlye, Asheley, Ashiley and Ashlea. The second and third most popular spellings seem to be Ashlee and Ashleigh.

After looking through the countless groups and wall postings on Facebook, I realized that the pet peeve many Ashley’s seem to share is the word “actually.”

“I always think that someone is calling my name when they say ‘actually,’” says sophomore Ashley Benson, of The University of Delaware. “I’ve turned around too many times to that word thinking that someone wanted me.”

This confusion occurs because actually sounds very similar to Ashley. The two words can easily be confused. There is even a Facebook group called, “My name is ASHLEY not ACTUALLY… but if you say ‘actually’ I’ll look anyways.”

Ashley Prida, student of Herzing College in Wisconsin, said in an email, “I freakin’ hate it when people say actually. Especially when you’re in class and you’re not paying attention but as soon as you hear that word, you look up and say ‘Yeah?’”

Another problem Ashley’s are faced with is the calling of roll in class. When professors only call first names and there are more than one Ashley in a classroom, you’re going to hear questions like, “Which Ashley?” or “Ashley who?” This is when last names come into play and when Ashley Duran would become Ashley D.

I can still remember my 10th grade biology class. There were three Ashley’s so I agreed to go by my middle name. Since I wasn’t used to the name, I would tend not to respond until someone nudged me with their elbow. My usual response was, “Oh Desireé, you’re talking to me. Sorry.”

My parents just had to name me Ashley, didn’t they? Sometimes I think that being named after a perfume might have actually worked out better. I mean really, I’ve never met another Raffinée.