Dual-gender nouns

Question

Some Spanish nouns, like 'artista' and 'dentista', can be either masculine or feminine--and therefore use either a masculine or feminine article or adjective--depending on the sex of the person referred to. Other nouns, like 'orden' and 'coma', change meaning when they change gender. Are there any nouns of the first type (that change only in gender) that don't end in the letter a ?
And if there aren't, why not ? (Edited: I added a space before the a.)

Answer 1

I found it, as you can see there are more possible endings:

I.3.1. Sustantivos invariables en masculino y en femenino

Algunos sustantivos tienen la misma terminación tanto para la forma masculina como para la femenina:

los nombres terminados en -ista Ej.: el/la artista, el/la tenista, el/la socialista

los nombres que terminan en -nte Ej.: el/la estudiante, el/la cantante, el/la amante

los sustantivos gentilicios terminados en -í o -ú Ej.: el/la israelí, el/la iraquí, el/la hindú

ciertos nombres como: Ej.: el/la atleta, el/la policía, el/la joven, el/la modelo, el/la maniquí, el/la profeta, el/la testigo

Answer 2

ilupine, welcome to the forum

Very interesting question

This happens mainly with jobs, all of which ending in a.

Actually, a new word was announced to be used for babies in Spain now, as niño (either sex) is supposed to be sexist and now we are going to use the word

criatura (which can only have the feminine article!!)

Which is supposed to be neutral. Disgusting!

Answer 3

All about Gender of Nouns