What is the word for names of male and female variations?
ie Paul-Pauline
Michael-Michelle
Leonard-Linda
Don’t these variated names have a word to define them?
If not, should we make one up?
I don’t think there is a name for that one. That means we gotta make one up. Some people around here hate it when you make new words, but I’m down.
Let’s call it. . . Transmonicker.
Easy. You wanna call websters or shall I?
DaLovin’Dj
I’ve always referred to male and female variations of the same name as the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. For example, the feminine for the name Steven is Stephanie. However, I wouldn’t use that in a term paper; I just made these terms up when bored and thinking about that very thing.
My own little word for this whole phenonemon is ‘name gender’.
I’m tempted to say diminutive, when a male name is given a different ending to make it feminine, because it often sounds less strong, or cuter, e.g., Henry and Henrietta. But I know that’s not quite right either.
Just a nit, but Leonard is from “lion”, and Linda means beautiful so I’m not sure there’s a relationship there.
There’s another one: Transmoniker/Transmonica
The term for physical differences between males and females is sexual dimorphism, so how about we call name differences between males and females sexual dinomenclature?
I’ve always heard it referred to as feminization or masculination. In other words, “Pauline” is the feminization of “Paul”. Examples of masculination are harder to come by, but I think that “Evan” (from “Eve”?) and “Mario” (Mary?) might fit the bill.
The diminutive of English names is usually formed by putting a “y” (or other equivalent letters) on the end of the name. There is some connection, at least, with feminization here: A woman named “Roberta” isn’t likely to call herself “Bob”, but she might go by “Bobbie”.