The enemy is among us. They are in our stores, in our workplaces, even our very homes. Their mission is to steal that which is most dear to us. They want our names.
"They" are women, of course, and I'm speaking of the increasing number of girls given boy's names. I raise the cry, and I will hear it echoed across this great land. Women, stop stealing our names.
My name is Addison, and despite what you might think, I am not a twelve-year-old girl. I do not sign my name "Addison Bieber" in my Mead notebooks, and I almost never use fruit-flavored lip gloss. Nothing I own contains glitter. Why do these vile slanders afflict my most noble name?
Addison... it means "son of Adam." Let me break this down into pieces for you.
son: (n.) male child
Adam: (n.) the very first man
My name literally means "son of the very first goddamn man there ever was"! Okay, I took some liberties with my translation, but the point remains, you can't get more masculine than a name that has "male" in it twice.
Here are a few other names that have been turned by the enemy.
Riley: A good Irish name. This name should be sitting in a pub somewhere, drinking whiskey and making bets.
Morgan: He played God, for God's sake. That's a He you're supposed to capitalize.
Ashley: Ever seen Gone With the Wind? Here's another Irish name that is so far gone, it's irreclaimable.
Alex: Short for Alexander. That -ander part? It means "man."
Chandler: Ever see Friends? Okay, not the manliest man, but hey, Courtney Cox.
Logan: WOLVERINE. WOLVER-EXPLETIVE-DELETED-INE!
The worst part is, it doesn't go both ways. We can't steal your names. Hell, we can't even keep our own, sometimes. There's only one solution. It may be drastic, but desperate times and so forth. Here it is:
We have to name our sons something that no woman would ever want to steal. And that's why my firstborn male issue will be named...
Velociraptor Hulk Spock-Vader
Your move, ladies.
devil's advocate:
ReplyDeletebut many of those names were originally surnames:
Addison, Riley, Morgan, Chandler, Logan, etc.
This means they were used by men and women, so how do you get to claim them for men as a first names -- didn't men 'takeover' the name from the family? Don't try the 'well it was his occupation' rift either, because family names were past down even after the head-of-the-house was no longer a Chandler.
Ashley, yes, and if we lived in the UK it's still a man's name, well, primarily.
I'm with you an Alexander, but why can't a girl named Alexandra be called Alex as a nickname?
Actually, Riley came from the Old Irish personal name Raghallach, not a surname. Likewise, Morgan came from the Welsh personal name "Morcant." Their later use as surnames was a patronymic. (For example, O'Reilly originally meant "grandson of Reilly").
ReplyDeleteI concede that Addison began as a surname, but the double deuce of manhood inherent within should be more than enough to conserve its masculine status.
You raise a good point about the gender orientation of surnames. In our society, surnames are definitely predicated on the male half of the equation, given the tradition that women give up their surname to take their husband's upon marriage. I make no comment on the social implications of that custom; I merely note that in a society with patrilineal surnames, it is natural to find surnames with a more masculine bent.
I wonder if a society with matrilineally-geared surnames would contain feminized versions of professions? Seamstress instead of Taylor, for instance? There's a story idea, for you.
In regards to your last point--in general, names with masculine and feminine forms have alternative nicknames as well. Christopher/Christina have Chris and Topher on the boy side, Chrissy and Tina for the ladies. Alexandra has Alexa and Lexy as substitutes for Alex.
This discussion raises a wider point, which is the value of gender distinction in naming. I would posit that to the extent that you find gender distinction to be socially relevant, you will find gender distinction in names to be socially useful.
Riley is questionable -- there are many sources talking about Riley as locational and professional, here's one: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/riley
ReplyDeleteAs for Morgan, I know that to be a long standing Welsh first name, indeed -- correction taken.
Ok, Alexa would be a fine substitute for Alex. :)
BTW I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I think there is great value in naming people with gender distinctive names. That gender distinction, especially in names to be socially useful. Yet, gender is a variable thing and it is culturally, (even micro-culturally), dependent.
The cultural aspects of names, women, social class systems, etc. also being raised via this discussion. This Wikipedia entry, which seems well sourced, discusses matrilineal names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality.
So, what do you do when society flips the distinction? What do you do in the middling times?
What about gender symmetrical names like Nicola (Masculine in Italian, feminine in English)? In the Sub-Asian continent there seem to be a plethora of unisex names.
What about the gender assumptions based upon name pronunciation like Nara which is Sanskrit for "man"?
Fair enough on Riley. Potentially all of the choices are accurate, and they came about through convergent evolution. I feel it is sufficient to my point that there is a personal name derivation, and it is masculine.
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting distinction between male nicknames for women and male names used for women. In the latter case, the parents made the choice; in the former, the woman herself. I wonder what factors influence those decisions?
It's interesting that the list of matrilineal societies only includes a few members that remain matrilineal. It seems in terms of surnames that the tendency has been towards patrilinealization, even as masculine personal names have been feminized. As much as I hate to admit it, that almost seems fair.
Almost.
A given culture in isolation has less problem preserving gender distinctions in naming, since there is less pressure to violate conventions like "-a = girl". Within a Western context, the influence of the Romance languages has solidified that intuition, Nicola aside.
Presumably a sufficiently popular name that violates a given cultural convention could act to change that convention. I think it would be much more likely that cultural convention does more to affect the popularity than the other way around. A masculine name from one culture/language is more likely to gain currency in another culture/language if it fits the masculine forms, and the same for feminine names.
And yes, some could be imported "incorrectly." This sort of cross-cultural wire crossing bothers me much less, however, since it can be presumed that the reason for the switch is the ignorance of those giving the name, as strengthened by the cultural norms for name interpretation. When the switch occurs intraculturally, there must be an alternate cause.
This conversation has left the internet. I was at a show last night and two of the dancer in the program has names which work well in this discussion:
ReplyDeleteJun Kuribayashi (man) Born in Japan, raised in the States.
Jordan Kristen and Eriko Jimbo (both women)-- Jordan is American and Eriko is Japanese.
"Within a Western context, the influence of the Romance languages" certainly set the foundation, but Western culture is changing and it's not all Romance languages anymore.
I wasn't always talking about incorrect use of a non-Western name, but the culturally correct use of name which to Westerners doesn't fit the Western expectation of gender when pronounced. With this influx, isn't gender expectation via name alone becoming outdated/outmoded?
So with the influx of of names which don't fit the Romance pattern "-a = girl" does it seem to reason that the unisexing of names might also occur?
Is the unisexing of names just a balancing of the male-female power struggle in society?
This takes us back to nicknames.
Often a women will take a male nickname for power. A great example is the movie "Pat and Mike" with Katherine Hepburn. She's the Pat, (short for Patricia), and she's a golfer, using a 'man's name' allows her more access than if first assumed to be female.
Or what about 'Little Women' -- Jo for Josephine, a strong willed lady -- or as one character synopsis says, "She's so boyish that Mr. March has referred to her as his "son JO" in the past, and her best friend Laurie sometimes calls her "my dear fellow.""
Doesn't this discussion also lend itself to presumptions of cultural heritage based up surnames as well? Hear a vowel at the end of name and assume Italian -- that sort of thing.
All great things for character development and character interactions indeed!