"Tristan" now feminine given name

[sagehen]

>At 11:55 AM -0800 2/24/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Except for JFK, I've never known a "John" who was called "Jack."  In
>>the first class I ever taught I had a "Jack," but that was actually
>>his given name.  So far as I can recall, I've known only one other
>>"Jack" (also his given name), and that was in the '50s.
>>
>>   JL
>
>the linguist Jack Hoeksema is officially Jacob, but perhaps that's a
>distinct Dutch pattern of hypocoristic.
>
>LH
>
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
I meant to add to my original note on this that Jack  was also frequently
the nickname for Jacob.  I wasn't as aware of this, growing up in the
midwest, as I became later with wider acquaintance with people from both
east & west coasts.  I was rebuked once, in one of my first fulltime jobs,
for goyisch insularity for having assumed that a particular Jack, that I
and my employer both knew, was "properly" named John.
Given that James & Jacob are forms of the same name, you'd think that
"Jack" might sometimes be bestowed on Jameses, but I've never run into one.
Alison


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