Gamma-positivity appears frequently in finite geometries, combinatorics and number theory. Motivated by the recent work of Sagan and Tirrell (Adv. Math., 374 (2020), 107387), we study the relationships between gamma-positivity and alternating gamma-positivity. As applications, we derive several alternatingly gamma-positive polynomials related to Narayana polynomials and Eulerian polynomials. In particular, we show the alternating gamma-positivity and Hurwitz stability of a combination of the modified Narayana polynomials of types A and B. By using colored $2\times n$ Young diagrams, we present a unified combinatorial interpretations of three identities involving Narayana numbers of type B. A general result of this paper is that every gamma-positive polynomial is also alternatingly semi-gamma-positive. At the end of this paper, we pose two conjectures, one concerns the Boros-Moll polynomials and the other concerns the enumerators of permutations by descents and excedances.