Are the following first names female/male/hermaphrodite:
Nikki Nan Adrienne
Please don’t guess because it can lead to trouble. If you don’t know any of them just post so and I will try to contact the author (I already did that once).
Thanks in advance, Michal ****************************************************************** 07-30-03, 12:12 PM methos There is always someone who bucks the trend, and there are sometimes 'foreign' names that confuse things, but to the best of my knowledge all of those are always feminine names.
Nikki is for Nichole. Nan is for Ann, Nancy, or Nancea. Adrienne is the feminine version of Adrian.
07-30-03, 12:42 PM Michal Thanks! You understood my question again. Good job. Wink
07-30-03, 12:44 PM Elexina Those are all female names. Nikki would be Nicky for a man and Adrienne would be Adrien. I am not sure how to masculinize "Nan." What is a hermaphrodite name? Pat? Jamie? Shirley?
07-30-03, 12:45 PM FredPuli Nikki is not a man's name. Nicky, however, is ( it's from Nicholas) though it may also be used by women called Nichola or Nicole as an alternative to the full name, just as Christines are often known as Chris; it is a 'diminutive' form of the name. Adrian is also a male form of Adrienne. Some diminutives are odd. Nan from Nancy makes sense but Peggy is derived from Margaret and Kit is from Chtistopher. Perhaps, as small children learning to talk, the bearers of such names produced an attempt at them which lived on. Kit might be a child's best early attempt at Christopher. Family names and nicknames may start this way. Queen Elizabeth is known privately by her older friends and relations as 'Lillibet', from her babyish attempt at her own name.
[This message was edited by FredPuli on 07-30-03 at 12:54 PM.]
07-30-03, 12:47 PM Georgia85 Well I'll have to dissagree Methos...guess I'm bucking the system...but all three are also recognized as male names as well. Male baby names that start with "N" is an example . But keep in mind, Nan and Nikki are nicknames and since they can be either male or female I would suggest that the names are unisex.
Nan - short for Nance Nikki - short of Nicholas
07-30-03, 01:16 PM methos As I said, there are always those who buck the trend, but I wouldn't put too much stock in a page that lists such names as Nancy, Nichole, and Nina as male names. Other sites do not list any of those as male names (although I knew the answer, I did check several name sites before my first post, just to be sure).
[This message was edited by methos5000 on 07-30-03 at 01:25 PM.]
07-31-03, 02:56 AM FredPuli A cultural note: I find it hard to believe that there is any man out there called Nancy. Shirley I accept; we had a famous all-in wrestler known as Big Daddy whose real name was Shirley. I don't suppose anybody called him a big girl , at least not to his face ! ' Nancy' however means 'effeminate' in colloquial British English. A 'nancy boy' is a very effeminate, 'camp' man.
Americans should be aware of another. 'Randy' here neans 'sexually promiscuous '. British women have some difficulty when introduced to an American with the words 'Hi, ladies, I'm Randy !' (That brings to the minds of the oldest some thoughts of WW2 when British men complained that there were three things wrong with the US military. They were 'overpaid, oversexed and over here ')
07-31-03, 03:24 AM Ewood27 I only know of two names which can truly be used for a person of either sex, Evelyn and Lesley.
And Fred, wasn't the corollary that our British troops were "underpaid, undervalued and under Eisenhower"?
07-31-03, 09:51 AM Georgia85 Ewood - how about Stacy and Michael? I've known males and females with both those names!
07-31-03, 12:44 PM Michal Oh thanks a lot Georgia85. Now I do really have to contact the author *pouts* Anybody has an idea how to contact Valerie Martin? And I don't understand how are English speaker able to function? You read "Thanks to my best friend Hilary Smith for helping me come up with animal and plant names for my book" in acknowledgements (sp) and you don't even know if the author's best friend is a man or a woman? English must read to so many misunderstandings. Actually I've already seen plenty of them in chatrooms and forums. For me it's very uncomfortable.
07-31-03, 01:01 PM methos Michal - I really wouldn't bother. As I said, there's always someone who bucks the trend, but that particular page is worthless as far as determining genders of names.
more examples of names it lists as "male": Georgia Jessica Sara Anne, Anna Clare Linda Katherine Rebecca
If you go by that page, all names are 'hermaphoditic.'
Well we're at it, it also lists these as male names: B C D E
EDIT: Before, I said that I had checked other sites to verify before my first post. Just to show you on of those sources: Nikki: (f) Pet form of Nichole or Nichola Nicole: (f) French feminine form of Nicholas. Nichola: (f) Latinate feminine form of Nicholas. Nan: (f) Pet form of Ann and a short form of Nancy and Nanea. Ann: (f) English form of Anne. Anne: (f) French, German, and English form of Hannah. Hannah: (f) Adrienne: (f) French feminine form of Adrian.
[This message was edited by methos5000 on 07-31-03 at 01:28 PM.]
07-31-03, 03:58 PM Georgia85 I think it's been established the source I listed is not relevant. But it does not exlude the fact that Stacy and Michael are names suited for both sexes! And you can check any baby book of names to see that. Big Grin
08-01-03, 08:09 AM Michal No one (noone) reads ackowledgments anyway so I won't bother (one day I really should check how to spell acknowledgements correctly though)
08-06-03, 10:34 AM Colin, Paris, France In France, we have the names Dominique, Claude and Camille that can be (and are) used for either sex. And à propos de rien du tout, wasn't John Wayne's first name really 'Marian'?
08-06-03, 10:48 AM maiku LOL, Colin. It was Marion, I believe, with an o. This o is crucial, because it is supposed to supply the otherwise missing y-chromosome, I guess, which our much-heralded Duke sorely needed to keep him from being called Duchess. Wink
Which reminds me of Francis and Frances, which I can never keep straight, myself, and also Gene and Jeanne (although these derive from names that are distinct enough in their longer forms).
08-06-03, 01:26 PM Georgia85 What about Tracy and Tracy? Wonder why both guy and girl I know spell their name the same way? Also know a girl named Tommye but she puts an "e" on her name so guess that's ok. But the Tracys and Stacys I know do not differentiate in their spellings.
08-07-03, 12:44 AM mozart56 If I could just put my grain of salt in here,I always thought and told that, there were no mistakes on how you wanted to spell a person's proper name.Diane could be written Dyan, or Georgia ,Georgya, and so on .....It obviously brought lots of confusion based on that principle alone, along the centuries.I don't think the spelling is relevant at all.
In French countries men are called Michel, Michael in English countries and Miguel in Spanish countries and on ... It basically came from Hebrew meaning "gift from God". Americans have a hard time calling a man Michel, for them it's only a female's name, so they tend to call him Mike or .....Michael. Remember the song ."a boy named Sue"? Cool
08-07-03, 02:39 AM Jenny Roberts Hilary, Shirley, Alex and Toni(Tony) have all been used in the past for male or female. Does it really matter these days? There are more weird and wonderful names about than ever. A teacher friend of mine has a child in her class called 'Ocean Destiny', reminds me of a cruise ship........lol.
08-07-03, 02:21 PM maiku Yeah, Jenny, but I'm willing to bet Ocean Destiny is a girl. What parents would ever name a boy Ocean Destiny? Seafate, Sea Chance, or Seawolf, maybe, but Ocean Destiny? Not a chance!
There are some naming conventions that resist change, even with people who think they're choosing unconventional ones. The preference for "o" as masculine and "a" as feminine is one of these, which explains why John Wayne could have been Marion, but never Marian.
(P.S. This convention does not apply, of course, to names based on oriental models. Of course the vowel symbolism in oriental languages is precisely backwards from that of English.)
08-07-03, 04:07 PM methos Female or male names I agree with Maiku about the a in English, especially at the end of a name, sounding feminine. After all, how many people here thought Matiqua was a girl at first Wink. Similarly, my Ukrainian ex-girlfriend's father's name is Sasha (short for Alexander), which still sounds feminine to me (though he certainly is not).
08-07-03, 04:50 PM maiku How about this one, methos: my very own nickname, in German, is spelled and pronounced with a final "a." I lived in Germany for years and never could get used to that.
Not to mention what I think of the parents of that once prominent TV actress, Ms. Learned. Razz
Of course the English habit of interpreting final "a's" as feminine and "o's" as masculine is much influenced by Spanish and Italian examples. I ask you, could Shakespeare have written a play called "Romeo and Julio"? Perish the thought!
08-07-03, 05:01 PM methos Slapping my head for this one... my very own nickname (which I believe would be the same as yours), in Russian also ends with with an a, and sounds fairly feminine to me. But when it's a pretty girl calling you by it, somehow it doesn't matter Wink.
08-07-03, 05:26 PM maiku You've got me there, methos. I never had any Russian girl, pretty or not, call me by any nickname at all (one of the many things I've no doubt missed out on in this all too brief life of ours). I have been addressed by male, Russian soldiers before, though, sometimes in terms which were less than endearing. The last one I can remember, when I stepped out of line sort of at a border crossing was something like: "Halt, MF!" (Or at least it sounded like that to me. I'm not sure of the Russian translation for "MF.")
I do know that my nickname in Russian would also, like yours, end in an "a." Nicknames are a little different, though, from normal naming practices. It still seems to me to be true that even in Slavic languages the ending "a" is more typically used for feminine names. Consider, for example, the feminine ending ovna which occurs in so many Russian patronymics, or female surnames in -skaya, (e.g. whats-her-name Slutskaya Eek).
08-07-03, 06:11 PM methos as we drift off topic Wink... I agree about the slavic last names. When my ex-girlfriend, her parents, her cousin, and her uncle immigrated, they ran into an interesting issue. The officials insisted that the uncle and his daughter needed to have the same last name. Because of this, both of their last names end in -ny, while the daughter's should end in -naya. This wasn't an issue with my ex-girlfriend because her and her father's last name is actually German.
08-08-03, 08:11 AM Georgia85
quote:Originally posted by methos5000: After all, how many people here thought Matiqua was a girl at first Wink.
You mean she's not? Eek I'm gonna have to do a better job of checking everyone's profile I guess Roll Eyes
08-08-03, 11:42 AM DorianGreyed An Aside to Mozart
In you short list of forms of Michael, you forgot the Slavic form, Mikhail, which was my grandfather's name, and the basis for my son's name, Mikail. 08-08-03, 12:36 PM maiku So, DG, is your son's full name then Mikail Dorianovitch (or Dorianowitz, maybe), in keeping with the Slavic naming custom methos has referred to above, or have you Americanized it to Mikail Greyed? Wink
08-08-03, 05:39 PM mozart56 DG , I came close to write it , thinking about Mikail Gorbatchov, but instead I went ".......etc",if I am not mistaking , isn't it your first name as well?
[This message was edited by mozart56 on 08-08-03 at 05:56 PM.]
08-08-03, 07:33 PM DorianGreyed He would then be Mikail Michaeloff or Michaelov, in the South Slavic Style. My real first name is Michael. My parents wanted their children to "be Americans." I also didn't learn Macedonian or Hungarian at home. I wish I had.
08-10-03, 03:01 PM maiku
quote:Originally posted by Doriangreyed: My parents wanted their children to "be Americans." I also didn't learn Macedonian or Hungarian at home. I wish I had.
How many Americans can make the same complaint? The pressure for the children of immigrants to conform is enormous, in this "melting pot" culture of ours, and I, too, have always regretted the fact that my mother never saw fit to teach us children her own dialect of German (one that is, alas, rapidly dying out).
I made up for this, in part, by learning German in college, but I never learned the form of the language my mother spoke--called Volga Deutsch. More respect needs to be paid to the cultural heritage immigrants bring to America. We are all the richer, linguistically and culturally, for the vast experiences of the people who came from every place on Earth to help make up America.
It is something of an irony that Michal's problems with knowing whether names are feminine or masculine is in great part owing to this very great linguistic diversity of ours. Sorry it causes you problems, Michal, but I think it's something to be cherished and celebrated. It confuses us, too, at times, but it enriches us all.
08-10-03, 04:01 PM carr1961
quote:Originally posted by maiku: LOL, Colin. It was _Marion_, I believe, with an _o_. This _o_ is crucial, because it is supposed to supply the otherwise missing y-chromosome, I guess, which our much-heralded _Duke_ sorely needed to keep him from being called _Duchess_. Wink
Which reminds me of _Francis_ and _Frances_, which I can never keep straight, myself, and also _Gene_ and _Jeanne_ (although these derive from names that are distinct enough in their longer forms).
Frances is female Think of Francis Scott Key
08-10-03, 04:27 PM carr1961 Maiku,There is a good reason that immigrants should have some conformity. I live it every day. Being just3hrs from the border it is with constant frustration in try to communicate with people that don't understand English. My poor son even took Spanish in High School, but that didn't help much because what is spoken is Tex-mex or Mexican. An example would be here a lime is a lime but to the Mexicans here it is called a lemon and vise versa.. If they want to keep their heritage that is just great ,but they need to learn to be Americans also. I am proud of my heritage and celebrate it often, But on the Independance at our local celibration we have very few Hispanic. Yet on Cinco de Mayo thay are out in force (it is not even Mexican Independance day). Don't get me wrong on this there is no prejudice here I am married to a hispanic. One of the things that made this the great country that it is, is that we are a melting pot a mixture. Yet all I seem to see is polical correctness, separation and the so called race card being talked up in the Media , by politicians and by Madison Ave. But what we have is Mejor que nada!! Wink
08-10-03, 05:51 PM Michal I have been able to find personal websites of most people that were mentioned in the acknowledgements and there were photos posted and I was able to determine the gender Smile
08-11-03, 07:28 AM maiku
quote:Originally posted by carr1961: Frances is female Think of Francis Scott Key
No kidding, carr?
Is it all right with you if I don't go back that far and stop with F(rancis) Scott Fitzgerald?
I'd think of St. Francis of Assisi (who was definitely not Frances, a sissy), but then that gets me to worrying about why it's Francisco in Spanish but Francesco in Italian. Not to mention the problems with Frank, Franco, Frankie, Franklin, and so on. Wink
08-11-03, 09:37 AM maiku
quote:Originally posted by carr1961: Maiku,There is a good reason that immigrants should have some conformity. I live it every day. Being just3hrs from the border it is with constant frustration in try to communicate with people that don't understand English.
You're absolutely right, carr. I failed to appreciate the difficulty people can present to us, as Americans, when they don't speak our language even before they presume to impose themselves as immigrants on our society. I withdraw my previous observations. You are right: there is clearly not enough emphasis on requiring immigrants to conform.
I propose, therefore, that our immigration laws be tightened even further than they already are, to provide that all immigrants be required to pass a rigorous English fluency test immediately upon their application to enter the country at any point of disembarkation. Failure to pass this test will result in their being sent packing back to wherever they came from. (For some ports of entry, e.g. those in Texas, the law might even go so far as to permit such failed immigrants to be shot on the spot.)
That oughta larn 'em!
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
