# Why do we have male and female first names? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122 "2011-04-12T17:55:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/41 "2011-04-13T14:04:40Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Ahem, this statement is far from universal (given that it makes any sense at all). For example, I don’t like my given name, it doesn’t sound beautiful and is generally considered a name to be mocked for where I live, so no trace of beauty here (but maybe that correlates with my beauty as a person ;)). I also have two independent nick names, which I’m exclusively called by two different circles of friends, so maybe my given name is a part of my identity, but not a very important one. OTOH, my given name, even my full name, isn’t exactly unique, as a quick google shows. I despise my given name, so I use a variant of my surname as a personal name: _Mickey Michaelson_ would be parallel. I don’t ask my family to eschew the personal name, but most of them do because they know I never liked it, even as a kid. The exceptions are my father and my more stubborn siblings. My wife, oddly, still addresses me by surname only, which people find odd. My baby sister calls me _Big Brother_, and my little sister calls me _Boy_. I’ve so rarely heard any of them use either my given name that I suspect they’d all have to think for half a second to remember it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/42 "2011-04-13T14:22:02Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’ve so rarely heard any of them use either my given name that I suspect they’d all have to think for half a second to remember it. 🙂 Well, I have friends I’ve known for many years of whom I’m sure that they don’t know my given name. ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/43 "2011-04-13T17:26:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, gender-based names predate literacy… Uhh. What does this mean exactly? How do we know that there were gender based names 20,000 years ago, if no one wrote about it? > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I’m pretty sure female inferiority was just recently invented. Back in hunter-gatherer times, they probably had a much higher value than they did even just 50 years ago. > > > > The other thing I’ve considered: is that people want to know about others with whom they may have mating potential with. > > I cannot let this ridiculous statement go unchallenged. In most cultures women were pretty much chattel–your father and later your husband owned you, and women were considered inferior. Really, read some basic history. “Recently invented” is simply not the case. I don’t believe this is true. I clearly said “Back in hunter-gatherer times…” In recent times, mainly with the advent of private property, women’s value has drastically decreased. The ability to horde wealth has allowed society to take wealth away from women. 500 years ago, a man’s value was a combination of several things, but mainly the property that he owned. Women didn’t own property, and as such their value was restricted to their abilities to raise children. A man’s value was easily tens to hundreds of times greater than that of a comparable woman. This situation has only recently been fixed (and mainly only in the developed world). 20,000 years ago in hunter-gatherer societies, however, women’s value was near equal to men’s. There was no “capital” that men could horde. Value was mainly in the work that you were able to do. Men hunted, women gathered. Men brought meat, women brought nuts and berries. Anthropologists suggest that women were NOT chattel, and were highly valued members of society. They had skills and talents that were viewed with similar value as the skills and talents that were provided by men. ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/44 "2011-04-13T17:39:27Z")
I meant hoard and not horde. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/45 "2011-04-13T17:40:52Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > Uhh. What does this mean exactly? How do we know that there were gender based names 20,000 years ago, if no one wrote about it? We know about preliterate societies partly because literate people wrote about them, and partly because oral literature was later written down. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/46 "2011-04-13T17:53:08Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Well, I have friends I’ve known for many years of whom I’m sure that they don’t know my given name. The first day of college, one of my prof’s decided to call me Joe Hometown. It caught on (generally as just Hometown) such that people couldn’t find me in the student directory as very few people knew my actual (Germanic, somewhat hard to pronounce) actual family name. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/47 "2011-04-13T18:39:52Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > We know about preliterate societies partly because literate people wrote about them, and partly because oral literature was later written down. Ah, but this comes from a time when SOME people were literate. Which means that at this time there was probably already a lot of travel and gossip and the sorts of things that might have given rise to gendered names. My wonder is whether or not there were gendered names before that time… 50,000 years ago, for example. The only reason proposed thus far that I can believe, is that when a child is born, all we really know about them is their sex, and so coming up with a sex-based name might naturally follow (since we don’t know anything else about them). (Though I suppose this theory would lead to naming based on appearance, which isn’t too frequent now. Bignose. Brownhair. Fourfingers. Hrmmm…) ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/48 "2011-04-13T19:29:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Andrei Ivanov might have a daughter named Susan Ivanova. > [@jayjay](#): > > Geek. Oh do babble on, you two. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/49 "2011-04-13T20:19:52Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Do you know what “longitudinal” means? A line of longitude is a meridian is a north-south line. But **mac\_bolan** didn’t specify which meridian, and in any case I think his statement is much too simplistic. Plenty of cultures haven’t traditionally used the “Given name Family name” or “Family name Given name” convention, for example. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/50 "2011-04-15T00:44:29Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > My wonder is whether or not there were gendered names before that time… 50,000 years ago, for example. The only reason proposed thus far that I can believe, is that when a child is born, all we really know about them is their sex, and so coming up with a sex-based name might naturally follow (since we don’t know anything else about them). Of course, not all cultures name their children at birth. There’s very little need to name a child before it’s to walking and talking age if you live in a society without databases and tax forms. ---
**Author:** ![Anticounterrevolutionary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f04885/32.png) [@Anticounterrevolutionary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anticounterrevolutionary)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/51 "2011-04-15T01:44:36Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Of course, not all cultures name their children at birth. There’s very little need to name a child before it’s to walking and talking age if you live in a society without databases and tax forms. And high infant mortality. Wait until they are worthy of a name that suits their personality. You’re not Dances With Wolves until you’re old enough to do so! ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/52 "2011-04-15T05:53:37Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > 1. north-south, brother. > 2. beginning from the westernmost tip of china going east up to japan, it’s mostly family name first. Huh? In Hungary, which is in Europe, far from this line, it’s also family name first. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122/53 "2011-04-15T11:43:57Z")
I still can’t figure out which meridian runs from western China eastward towards Japan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-male-and-female-first-names/578122.md?page=2)