perception of gender in names

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:11 AM -0700 6/10/02, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote:
>  >>> adrian.pable at ENS.UNIBE.CH 05/27/02 03:28AM >>>
>I always find it difficult as a German speaker to tell whether
>certain English names are female or male, e.g. Laurie and Lyle
>
>Lyle is male and Laurie looks female to me.  However, I have dealt
>with people from other English-speaking countries named Laurie or
>Lawrie (UK and South Africa, respectively) who are males.  I believe
>in both cases, it's short for Lawrence.  But it still sounds very
>odd to me.

I grew up as Laurie (although to survive junior high school I
converted to Larry) and it was short for Laurence.  My mother
believed that Laurence --> Laurie while Lawrence --> Larry, but it
doesn't really work that way most of the time.  I was actually named
for the character Laurie in _Little Women_, whose full name was
Theodore Laurence.  Most of the male Lauries around anymore are from
commonwealth lands--Scotland, maybe England, Canada, and as you say
South Africa, as well as the antipodes, as in our (current?
erstwhile?) listmate, Laurie Bauer from New Zealand.

Larry, né Laurie