Butch and Dick would not be good female names. Straight females that is.
Names on the forum are usually gender unspecific. I imagine that the reason is that often men/women don’t want to be identified as male/female, as that sometimes influences the reactions of the reader to the actual posting. One of the great things about the internet is that being unidentifiable as to gender is a great equalizer. Of course it also allows some folks to take advantage by pretending to be something other that what they are.
Gender based names seem to be one of the areas where we haven’t seemed to need heed the same neutral and socially correct rules, and I like that.
Why do some people use the names of pets?
Commenting only on this part - what you say is true, but I think the female name is generally appended with a ‘Kaur’ and that identifies the person is female although the first name is unisex.
You’re thinking of Sikhs, and most Punjabis aren’t Sikhs. All male Sikhs have “Singh” (Lion) as part of their name and all female Sikhs have “Kaur” (Lioness) as part of theirs.
Message boards are places to play; many times people deliberately choose names that fit a given persona, or that are unlike anything they are or would choose to be in the real world. Meatworld Skald is very different from SDMB Skald.
And back when I was Fabulous Creature, I got vexed with people assuming it was a female name; it’s part of why I changed.
Also there was that thing with the revenooers.
People pick goofy names, funny names, or names related to things that interest them. Because the names are abstract they aren’t gender specific.
I’m sure these same people don’t name their children “left hand of dorkness” so their children won’t grow up being, as the OP said, pre-judged, and/or framed.
But Modern English does have masculine and feminine personal pronouns (e.g. “he” and “she”).
A couple of people have suggested it is to do with identifying a person of the opposite sex for mating or similar purposes.
I think that is unlikely. Gender-based name distinctions arose before most people were literate, and centuries before long-distance forms of communication. Contacts were normally made face to face with the person named, and you would not rely on a name to identify sex.
If you had serious difficulty in identifying the other person’s sex, mating was not likely to be high on your agenda.
I wonder why we stopped doing this.
Lets start a new thread to discuss it.
Yes, gender-based names predate literacy, but it is false there was no long-distance communication. Already 10 000 years ago, when most people on the planet were still hunter-gatherers, raw materials, various finished items, innovations and therefore people traveled over vast distances. Cultural networks spanning 100 000’s square miles existed (I’m most familiar with Northeastern Europe but it’s not a special case, AFAIK). Also, exogamy, or marrying people outside your own community was the norm among many northern H-G societies, presumably already in the Mesolithic Stone Age. Gossiping must’ve been a major pastime. In this context there are any number of situations where it would be most useful to know a person’s gender before ever seeing him / her.
I understand your point. However, I was focusing on the possible uses of gender specific names.
One use might be to tell you that a person is male or female, when you can’t see them. Thus, in modern times, if a stranger Chris emails you, you can’t tell if it is a male or a female. Conversely, it is reasonable to assume that Michael of Lucan is male, even though you never meet him and have communicated by long-distance media. (And yet, in rare cases, Michael may be a female name, though not in my case.)
In the past, long-distance communication certainly existed, but not in circumstances where gender specific names were relevant..
In the past, exogamy would usually have been either by arranged marriage, where you are explicitly offered a wife or a husband, or by face to face meeting where you choose for yourself. Obviously the same applies where you arrange the marriage by killing the neighbouring tribe’s men and carrying off their women.
Again, gossiping would make it explicit what kind of person was being discussed.
you can draw a longitudinal line across the globe separating the people who give their ‘last’ names first and their familiar names last.
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What longitudinal line?
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The terms you’re looking for are “family name” and “given name.”
It’s part of the person’s identity and uniqueness and beauty. As a infant it’s hard to tell about the personality, but at least you can give them a name based on what you do know.
Most (all?) names have meanings, some based on gods and goddesses, which are male and female.
- north-south, brother.
- beginning from the westernmost tip of china going east up to japan, it’s mostly family name first.
Do you know what “longitudinal” means?
Geek.
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.
This thread asked for feminine names that became masculine. Very few, though I did suggest “Stacy.” Masculine names that became feminine are a dime a dozen.
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.
My name is a Northern Germanic variant of a Greek name (also the name of a Christian saint) that originally means ‘peasant’ (no god here). I’m sure my parents didn’t know this when they named me, and it wouldn’t make an ounce of sense, since there’s no family or personal connection to any kind of agriculture.