New English (?) name: Jhan

[William Palmer]

Maybe this doesn't count, but how 'bout Jhonny Peralta of the Detroit
Tigers? I concede that he's Hispanic, but his name seems to be an attempt to
sound Anglo.



As to women's names which were formerly masculine, my impression is that
once the first girl gets a boy's name, no boy is ever given that name again.
Examples are too numerous to list....Kelly, Madison, Shannon, Beverly, Kay,
Vivian, ad infinitum.



Bill P


On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: New English (?) name: Jhan
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, one thing is that, except for "jheri curl," this is only ex. of the
> sequence {jh} I've ever seen in English.
>
> Also, the name is presumably - or potentially - unisex, rather like "Jan,"
> which, in English, I still think of in spite of the evidence as exclusively
> feminine. Just as "Evelyn" used to be masculine.
>
> (The first masculine "Jan"  I ever heard of in English was the once
> famous/infamous Jan Bakker.)
>
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:48 PM, William Palmer <palmerwil at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       William Palmer <palmerwil at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: New English (?) name: Jhan
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > An innocent question...what is unique to "Jhan", that is not unique
> about,
> > say, "Beyonc=E9" or DeMontez" (Stitt)...Clemson's pointguard, for
> example?
> >
> > Bill P
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com
> > >wrot=
> > e:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: New English (?) name: Jhan
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > ------
> > >
> > > Probably from the same school of naming as Saffron and Frontine (or was
> > > Fronteen?).
> > >
> > >     VS-)
> > >
> > > On 3/21/2011 5:56 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > > Jhan Hochman of Portland Community College is the author of _Green
> > > Cultural
> > > > Studies: Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory_ (Moscow: University of
> > Idah=
> >  o
> > > > Press, 1998).
> > > > JL
> > >
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