Help! I need to send letters out at work and have a correspondent named “Sukhbir”. What is your best guess as to male/female? If I don’t know, would “Dear M. Lastname” be OK?
It sounds like a male, but even I couldn’t be 100% sure. How formal? I assume you can’t put Dear Sukhbir. I’d go with Dear Mr. Sukhbir, if he’s anything like me, he’s used to people constantly confusing him.
So speaks Anaamika :)…take it for what it’s worth.
Well, their letter was signed “Sukhbir” but it is an “that job’s already been filled” letter so I thought I would try to be “official” 
I’m glad I didn’t get a bunch of Reed/Taylor/Baileys where it’s also tough to tell. A friend recently had a Ryan and I thought, what beautiful boy, until I found out otherwise.
In the context of that type of letter, I would see no problem with “Dear Sukhbir Lastname.”
Well, I googled Sukhbir and it seems to be A.) Indian and B.) male. The only think I got for Sukhbir, Mrs. were woman married to men named Sukhbir. So I’d say your pretty safe with male.
As someone with a unisex first name (IRL, too, not just “Podkayne”), let me tell you that it annoys me beyond all reason when people “guess” that I’m male and address correspondence with Mr.
I much prefer “Dear Firstname Lastname,” which I think is perfectly polite in business correspondence. (And if you’re sending me personal correspondence you goddamn well better know me well enough to have noticed the bumps up front.)
My first name is gradually turning into a girls name, so I get more and more stuff addressed to a Mrs. Miller. It never bothers me when it happens. They’ve got to pick one or the other; half the time they’re going to pick wrong. It’s not like it’s insulting, or anything.
Although I did take exception when my health insurer kept refering to me as Ms. Mostly because I was afraid it would hurt my coverage. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, but we’re not going to pay for your prostate exam. According to our records, you don’t have one.”
Sukhbir is a Punjabi Indian male name.
Yeah, so is mine. When I was a kid, it was just an uncool guy’s name, and I got teased for it. Now it is actually quite trendy and cool, but dammit, only if you are a girl! :mad:
I mean, it’s not like the origin of the name is ambiguous either. The guy started a very famous war over 2000 years ago by slaying a demigod, kidnapping a princess, and generally being a pain in the ass. Most definitely a guy…
Buy hey, just do a TV program of questionable taste and film some skanky videos with someone else’s boyfriend, and you become a household name!
A quick search on Yahoo pulled up almost all male Sukhbirs.
Lemme guess: Paris?
My first name is Gallic for “Son of the handsome man.” Can’t get a whole hell of a lot more masculine than that.
On the first try. Nice job!
As for yours, is it Mackenzie by any chance?
That’s me!
I think you can pretty much use the name they said. If someone introduces him/herself as “Sukhbir” in person or in writing, that’s what you should call them, until you’re told otherwise, I think. That seems like the most logical answer to me.
As in the upcoming wedding of Paris et Paris, our second son married a girl with the same first name as his. His older brother’s daughter calls her “Uncle girl Jodi”.
I always thought you were a guy. How dreadfully embarassing!
:dubious:
One assumes you don’t read much Heinlein.
Hmmm…
We’ll let that pass… for now…
Podkayne of Mars. One of Heinlein’s juveniles. Not a bad book. Go check it out of the library.