Male version of 'Karen' has been decided as Gen Z and Millennials fight it out
'Karen' might be the name people slap on a complainer, but there's another name that moans much more, and it seems blokes kick up a lot more of a stink than women.
Gen Z think they've already solved the conundrum of what the new name for a 'Karen' ought to be as they think it should be 'Jessica', though they might have a bit of trouble getting that one off the ground.
Somehow, 'Karen' really caught on to the point that a restaurant chain where the staff were unpleasant to the guests even got launched and they even tried a hotel version of the concept.
Beyond your Karens and your Jessicas the idea that there ought to be a male version of the name keeps coming up, and plenty of monikers have been thrown into the ring over what name that ought to be.
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Back in 2020, Fatherly spoke to Dr Apryl Williams about the memes trying to name the male Karen and she said that the names Greg and Terry would occasionally pop up, but the main name among them was 'Ken'.
However, times change very quickly and before long Ken was associated with hunky Ryan Gosling singing about his feelings in Barbie and the name took on a bit of a renaissance, or Kenaissance if you will.
People were talking about their 'Kenergy' and declaring themselves to be 'Kenough', there were even colourful jumpers declaring it and the name Ken seems to have been rather rehabilitated.
So what else could be the male version of Karen?
Fortunately, a few years later Pedestrian reported that Trustpilot had compiled a list of the names who made the most complaints on the review site and it turns out that top of the tree is 'David'.
According to the data, Davids had left more one-star reviews than any other name and it turns out that the major moaners were almost all men.
Of the top 10 names to complain when leaving a review only one woman's name made an appearance, Sarah, and she only took spot number seven.
You had to go down to position 14 to see the next name typically given to a woman, Emma, suggesting that men are the bigger complainers and David is the one most likely to kick up a fuss.
Even if that's the case, it's quite tricky to turn a name into verbal shorthand for something everyone understands.
If you describe someone as 'a right Karen' a lot of people will know what you're talking about, but if you say someone is 'such a David' that just hasn't caught on in people's imaginations in quite the same way.
There are folks who reckon that the term Karen is basically gender neutral and men can be Karens too.
It can't have been much fun being named Karen ever since it took on a new meaning.
Topics: Gen Z, Weird, Community, Social Media
Joe Harker