Unisex names such as Perry, Drew and Casey are common now. In the mid-1960s, a girl so named might find herself mistakenly assigned to a boys’ gym class, paired with a boy for locker space or recruited by all-male military academies. Meet Cameron Bergh, a Richfield High student whose tale of inconvenience landed inside the Minneapolis Star. An update follows this clip:

FOR ALMOST 18 YEARS

Cameron J. Bergh Mistaken for Boy

The command, “You’d better go to the office, because they won’t like this,” has plagued Cameron J. Bergh for most of her 18 years.

At least once a year, Cameron is assigned to a boys’ gym class, or to share a locker with a boy.

“I had one locker and when I opened it, there was a pair of size 12 shoes in it. A teacher saw them and told me to go right to the office and have a change made,” she said Thursday.

“I don’t know how I got the name. I suppose my mother gave it to me,” said Cameron.

Her twin, conventionally named Kirsten, agreed, but without a trace of sympathy. She thought it was hilarious that “Cam” has been approached by recruiters from the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., and the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.

“Dad wanted me to write and see how far I could get,” said Cameron, “but Mom put a stop to it.”

The services wanted Cameron because her named fooled them into thinking a boy had won a college scholarship from the prestigious National Merit Foundation.

The identical twins won identical scholarships, to be used at the University of Minnesota.

Mom and Dad are Mr. And Mrs. Howard M. Bergh, 6300 Russell Av. S., Richfield, and there are three more Bergh girls. The baby of the family, Myles, at 3, feels he has too many older sisters, the twins said.

Cameron and Kirsten share academic excellence, with A- averages at Richfield High School, and both are worrying about grades during the spring.

They date whenever they like because “Mom and Dad trust our judgment.” They work after school at the same dry cleaning firm, and study some in between.

They are trying to convince their father, who promised them a car for graduation, to make it a convertible, but Cameron said:

“He’s the sensible kind, so it will probably be a station wagon.”

APRIL 2007 UPDATE: Cameron Bergh Kane, now 59, lives in Bloomington. She is married with two grown daughters, Barbara and Kirsten, the latter named for her twin. Kane avoided unisex names on purpose, but said that her own name caused little confusion after high school. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota, earned a bachelor’s degree in English Lit – “useless … I wouldn’t recommend it” – and landed a job as a secretary in the personnel office at University Hospitals. That’s where she met her husband, William, then an intern, now a pediatrician.

In the photo accompanying the 1966 story, Cameron Bergh bends her right hand up to her forehead in an easy, Boy Scout-style salute. Was that posed? Yes, the photographer asked her to salute for the camera, a request that would earn you a suspension these days.

How about that car? Did Dad make good on his promise to buy one for the twins? “He lied,” Kane said with a laugh. No car, no convertible, not even a station wagon. “I bought my own car when I graduated from college,” she said. “A Chevrolet Vega. A red one.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Main, People, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.