honcho > honchas

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:48 PM -0800 2/1/07, Mike Speriosu wrote:
>>Doesn't Japanese have affixes that are gender specific?  Such as -ko
>>added to a given name for a female child?  (On the other hand, the
>>couple of on-line dictionaries I consulted didn't add "female" to
>>their definitions as "child".)  Perhaps that's what Michael T.
>>Wescoat was referring to when he wrote "cho" was gender-neutral.
>>
>While it's true that modern Japanese names ending in "-ko" are almost
>exclusively given to females, the character itself simply means "child"
>(genderless). I don't have any exact dates off hand, but I've been told
>many times by native speakers that "-ko" names actually used to be given
>to boys instead.
>
>There is no gender marking on common nouns whatsoever in Japanese (as
>there is in Spanish, German, Latin, etc.). Think of names ending in
>"-ko" as similar to English names ending in "-a", e.g. "Amanda",
>"Felicia", or "Brenda". They are a trend but not quite a rule: names
>like "Jonah" are acceptable male names.

Isn't it the case that -hiko names (e.g. Yasuhiko) are predictably
male names?  Is this true of other -ko names?

LH

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