perception of gender in names

[Beverly Flanigan]

I always preferred Jo's name for Laurie--good ol' down-to-earth Teddy.  (No
offense, Larry!)

At 03:47 PM 6/10/02 -0400, you wrote:
>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


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm