alt Hacker NewsMy biggest WTF on this (as a foreigner) was the late Lindsey Graham. I always knew Lindsey/Lindsay as a female name.
Either way, peeking through the list, seems to me names which end with a vowel are usually feminine. However, there's a caveat: names end up shortened, and over time even those get shortened.
'Brit', 'Britney' for 'Brittany'.
'Gerry' or 'Geri' or 'Ger' for 'Gareth' (Dutch variant: 'Gerrit'),
'Pat', 'Patty' for 'Patrick', 'Patricia'.
'Pen', 'Penny' for 'Penelope'
'Ash' for 'Ashley'.
'Tash' or 'Tasha' for 'Natasha', 'Nata(s)cha' (a variant of Nathan/Nathaniel?)
'Toni', 'Tony', or 'Ton' for 'Antonia', 'Anton', or 'Antonius'.
Skimming through the quick examples I came up with, one thing stands out: if it ends with an 'a', feminine. I believe this stems from Latin? It also appears Brittany is a very British example, whereas say 'Tony' stems from a Catholic background. People with that background get very traditional names, but they're always practically shortened. Annoyingly, you'd have to mention your complete name on say a form, but otherwise you get a wider choice since you have like three names, and they're relatively long so more variety to pick from.
Replies
There was a boy in high school named Ash (he was probably class of 2002). He tried hard to not let anyone know it was short for Ashley.
IDK about the politician, but I bet 80% of the Lindsey’s out there are named after the Fleetwood Mac guitarist, so obviously that name transcend any petty gender limitations.
Ambiguous couple names are always a challenge. I indirectly know of a Tony and Dawn. Or is it Toni and Don? I can never remember which is which.
Ends in 'a' = female: a relatively safe assumption, as far as an assumption here can be safe, with no other context. A strong majority in many places will match that. Many of the exceptions will be obviously foreign names with traditional spelling, which can go either way (may follow that culture's patterns, may not, highly varied).
Ends in vowel (sound) = female: probably mostly true, in that I strongly suspect it's >50%, but it's unreliable enough that I'd avoid trying to base any assumptions off it.
Names really follow no rules at all here. For both good and bad. E.g. most recently I ran across a "La-sia" pronounced "ladashsia". If it's spelled vat-ik'Nff and pronounced "King George" and they're female, then that's what's correct.
The one that always trips me up is when a man is a Stacey.
Lindsey (as well as Ashley, Tracy, Kelly, among others) are all, I believe, last names that became given names. They skewed female over time because they end with a vowel.
Ashley Williams is the name of two American actresses as well as two male soccer players (Welsh and Liberian) and a male boxer (also Welsh).
When I was a kid, I was very confused by the names of Fleetwood Mac band members. It really threw me for a loop that they had a Lindsay who is a dude, and a Stevie who is a girl, both counter to my intuition about names.
Gotta mention Lindsey Buckingham.
(Way underrated)
Andrea, Simone, Nicola, Michele, Daniele in Italian are all male names, but English speakers would probably assume the person is female from the name alone.
Yes, it stems from Latin. See Latin's case declension tables [0]
In Spanish and Portugese, -a is a feminine suffix and -o is masculine; that's where we get Patricio vs Patricia.
There are very few female names that end with -o and very few male names that end with -a in Spanish.
Another example is -ine in Joseph/Josephine. -ine/-ino/-in is a feminizing suffix in German and a diminutive in Spanish and French, that's why it's a femenine suffix in names. In English we have hero vs heroine.
[0]: https://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/case-endings-five-de...