[Ads-l] Name "Jay" goes unisex

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Apr 30 13:38:53 UTC 2016


> On Apr 30, 2016, at 1:13 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 11:36 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Jay Newton-Small
> 
> 
> OTOH, _Jaye_ Padgett is a guy.

Not without issues because of it (he was a former colleague of mine at Yale).  Not psychological issues AFAIK, just having to correct faulty inferences (and of course misspellings). 

As for female "Jay"s, one factor may be the not infrequent use of "J" as a short form of women's names (Julia, Jennifer,...) as well as men's (Jason, Jared,...).  So maybe rather than naming a daughter "Julia" and calling her "J", some parents just cut out the middle-name and go with Jay.  

LH
> 
> 
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
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