Is there a way to determine the gender of a person given a name? I ask because I am writing a paper in which I refer to foreign philosophers. Although I could just use the author’s name continually, a pronoun would be nice. Unfortunately, all my good pronouns are gender specific, and this information is rarely included in the article.
I realize that sometimes names are ambiguous, but they are often gender specific. Is there a web site somewhere that I could just type in a name and get a gender out of?
I don’t know of a Web site that would do what you need, but there might be other ways to find out the person’s sex. Or, if the philosophers in question are well-enough known, they will probably have a Web site devoted to them, or you will be able to find references to them somewhere on the Web, and can thus determine their sex.
Or, what languages are you talking about? That might help to provide the general rules about foreign-word gender.
It really helps if you know the language the name comes from. If you want a word to use to find some websites dealing with the subject, try “onomastics”.
Certainly. Look at Michael Lerned or Darryl Hannah.
Some cultures do have nomenclature rules that show whether the person is male or female. Russin, for instance, traditionally added an “-a” to the last name when female. Also, the patronymic (what English speakers would think was the middle name) was different – ending in “-ovich” if male or “-ovna” if female.
However, the best suggestion is to look up the philosopher and find out for sure.
I, too, recommend that you look up a biography. It really annoys me when people look at my unisex name (no, not Podkayne, my real name) and assume that I am male, resulting in junk mail addressed to Mr. Podkayne Fries, and the like. (My male friend Lynn has it worse, though–imagine going to your box the mailroom of your all-male dorm and pulling out tampon samples.)
If you do not know for sure, do not guess.
Alternatively, use “shim,” the all-inclusive pronoun. : )
Look up the name in http://www.britannica.com Often there will be some indication in the article, and if that fails, you can often find a picture of the person. If that fails, post the name of the mysterious unisex philosopher here, and we can probably figure it out.
