given names

Sun Jul 22 22:08:23 UTC 2012

Dear Chao,

I never wrote (or thought) that most Chinese names are 
gender-neutral, I just wrote that you can find many 
examples of gender-neutral names, more than English at any 
rate; I think I wrote quite clearly that the meaning of 
morphemes of the name itself help you understand whether 
it is a male or a female name. If a name as 杰 jié (or 捷 
jié) is typically associated with a man but you also use 
it for a woman, then to me it is gender-neutral; you do 
not use 'Mark' for a girl, or 'Ann' for a boy in English. 
Since you mentioned the distinction between written and 
spoken form, I may add that in the spoken form there can 
be even more ambiguity: if a person's given name is 'lì', 
for instance, you can associate it to characters/morphemes 
as 力 'strength' and 丽 'beauty', which evoke quite 
different images.

Best,

Giorgio

-- 
Dr. Giorgio Francesco Arcodia
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione
Edificio U6 - stanza 4101
Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano

Tel.: (+39) 02 6448 4946
Fax: (+39) 02 6448 4863
E-mail: giorgio.arcodia at unimib.it

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:17:25 -0400
 Chao Li <chao.li at AYA.YALE.EDU> wrote:
> Dear Giorgio,
> 
> I personally do not think Chinese truly fits with what 
>Prof. Newmeyer
> described in his request because *most* names in Chinese 
>are not
> gender-neutral. I believe this is true not only in 
>written form but also in
> spoken form. In the case of "杰"，it is typically used in 
>male given names
> though one can sometimes encounter it in female given 
>names.
> 
> Best,
> Chao
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 1:27 PM, <> wrote:
> 
>> Dear colleague,
>>
>> In Chinese (and Sinitic in general) many names are 
>>gender-neutral, but not
>> all of them. For instance, 杰 jié ('outstanding') is a 
>>very common name used
>> both for boys and girls; very often the only clue to the 
>>gender of the
>> name-bearer is the usage of certain 
>>characters/morphemes, the meaning of
>> which is associated with feminine or masculine 'images', 
>>let us say.
>> Note that Chinese does not mark gender on adjectives and 
>>nouns; I suspect
>> that there might be a connection between this 
>>characteristic and having
>> gender-neutral names (see the jié example above).
>>
>> Please let me know if you should need more data on that. 
>>Best,
>>
>> Giorgio F. Arcodia
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Giorgio Francesco Arcodia
>> Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
>> Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione
>> Edificio U6 - stanza 4101
>> Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1
>> 20126 Milano
>>
>> Tel.: (+39) 02 6448 4946
>> Fax: (+39) 02 6448 4863
>> E-mail: giorgio.arcodia at unimib.it
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 10:04:00 -0700
>>  Frederick J Newmeyer <fjn at U.WASHINGTON.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have a question posed to me by a non-linguist friend 
>>>that borders on
>>> trivia, but is perhaps deeply interesting nonetheless. 
>>>Does anybody know of
>>> a culture where no distinction is made between male 
>>>given names and female
>>> given names? That is, cultures where if somebody says to 
>>>you something like
>>> "I'd like you to meet Gkz'itfo some day," you have no 
>>>cues as to whether
>>> Gkz'itfo is a man or a woman. English and some other 
>>>European languages
>>> have SOME names like that (Lee, Kim, Sandy, etc.), but I 
>>>wonder if there
>>> are places where ALL names are gender-neutral.
>>>
>>> Thanks. I'll summarize.
>>>
>>> --fritz
>>>
>>>
>>> Frederick J. Newmeyer
>>> Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
>>> Adjunct Professor, U of British Columbia and Simon 
>>>Fraser U
>>> [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail]
>>>
>>