4 ms·

Maybe n is a popular letter to end nouns with the same way g is a popular way to end verbs with? (ing)

thaumasiotes 13y ago
The only regular noun inflections append an 's', not an 'n'. Certain people's wishes aside, the ox -> oxen / shoe -> shoon / cow -> kine pattern is dead, and left very little in the way of irregular relics.
sliverstorm 13y ago
My half-baked theory is names ending with "n" are generally all clearly masculine. Many names are being gradually feminized, or at least androgenized, such as Taylor and Kacey. I bet many parents naming boys would try to avoid ambiguous or potentially ambiguous names. All of the boy names that pop into my head right now that end with "n" are pretty unassailably male. John. Shawn. Allen. Ben. Brandon. Trenton. Colin. Ethan. Jason. Of course, the day is coming that some little girl is named Johnathan.
- umanwizard 13y ago
  Roslyn?
- pcurve 13y ago
  I'm not sure if names that end in 'n' "sound" more masculine, or it's just that there aren't that many female names that end in 'n'. But you might have a point. Most popular female names end in 'a' 'e' or 'y'. http://www.babycenter.com/popularBabyNames.htm?year=2014 http://www.babycenter.com/popularBabyNames.htm?year=2014 But those female names that do end in 'n', I don't think they sound masculine. (lauren, Kathleen, Evelyn, Lillian, Allison, Carolyn) etc.
  - userbinator 13y ago
    Coming up with a measure of how masculine or feminine a name is would be a great application for machine learning. The two features I can see that makes names more feminine are a larger number of vowels, and ending in a vowel. Maybe consonants are more masculine?
    - pcurve 13y ago
      that would be very interesting, especially if you can factor in non-alphabet based names, such as ones from Asia, and find that there is a universal pattern. Popular Chinese names: http://www.chinawhisper.com/top-50-most-common-chinese-names/ http://www.chinawhisper.com/top-50-most-common-chinese-names... Popular Japanese names: http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        Your chinese names link is inexplicably ranking entire names (look at #s 5, 6, and 8, the girl's name is 秀英 xiuying in every case; 王, 李, and 张 just happen to all be incredibly common family names. 丽 li also occurs in the list with each of those, although it does seem to be much less common for girls with the surname 李 [also pronounced li]. Or notice how the top four male names are all 伟.). But I'm pretty sure no one is interested in which names occur how often with which surnames -- would you be interested in studying the breakdown of "Lisa" among people variously surnamed Black, Smith, Jones, etc? The chinese names link does accurately indicate that a chinese girl's name is usually distinguishable by the meaning; things like "beautiful", "graceful", "quiet", "compliant", and so on are popular. I would guess phonetic considerations are a distant second (though, as illustrated by the anomalous unpopularity of 李丽, they clearly do come into it).
        pcurve 13y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. Reading through the list of just first names, the only phonetic pattern that sticks out is that there aren't any female names that start with K. But otherwise I would agree, I doubt most non-Chinese would be able to differentiate Chinese names by gender. www.ourbabynames.co.uk/chineseboys.php www.ourbabynames.co.uk/chinesegirls.php
- freshyill 13y ago
  Trenton?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Don't tell me that's a girl's name now too
- twelvechairs 13y ago
  Counter to your point, Vivian used to be a common mans name but underwent a feminisation so that now it's almost exclusively used by women
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Certainly, there are female names that end with "n"! My thought is more along the lines of, perhaps "of all currently male names ending with n, more are strongly masculine (than other letters)"
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    To me, Leslie seems another good example.
    - sp332 13y ago
      Beverly was the one that shocked me. It's partly since I grew up with an Aunt Beverly, and partly because I'm used to names ending in -ly being feminine.
- cafard 13y ago
  Ann, Caitlyn, Eileen, Kathleen, Kathryn, Maureen do come to mind. I guess Morgan can go either way, but the two I know are female.
Houshalter 13y ago
One interesting fact I learned is that all words beginning with "sn" have to do with your upper mouth or nose. E.g. snarl, sneeze, snot, snog, snort, sniff.
- kenjackson 13y ago
  Snip, snag, snow....
  - sethammons 13y ago
    Snatch, snitch, snake...
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  OK, he phrased this incredibly poorly, but he's referring to an acknowledged linguistic phenomenon. further reading: http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1106.html http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1106.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonestheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonestheme

The only regular noun inflections append an 's', not an 'n'. Certain people's wishes aside, the ox -> oxen / shoe -> shoon / cow -> kine pattern is dead, and left very little in the way of irregular relics.

sliverstorm 13y ago

My half-baked theory is names ending with "n" are generally all clearly masculine. Many names are being gradually feminized, or at least androgenized, such as Taylor and Kacey. I bet many parents naming boys would try to avoid ambiguous or potentially ambiguous names. All of the boy names that pop into my head right now that end with "n" are pretty unassailably male. John. Shawn. Allen. Ben. Brandon. Trenton. Colin. Ethan. Jason. Of course, the day is coming that some little girl is named Johnathan.

umanwizard 13y ago
Roslyn?
pcurve 13y ago
I'm not sure if names that end in 'n' "sound" more masculine, or it's just that there aren't that many female names that end in 'n'. But you might have a point. Most popular female names end in 'a' 'e' or 'y'. http://www.babycenter.com/popularBabyNames.htm?year=2014 http://www.babycenter.com/popularBabyNames.htm?year=2014 But those female names that do end in 'n', I don't think they sound masculine. (lauren, Kathleen, Evelyn, Lillian, Allison, Carolyn) etc.
- userbinator 13y ago
  Coming up with a measure of how masculine or feminine a name is would be a great application for machine learning. The two features I can see that makes names more feminine are a larger number of vowels, and ending in a vowel. Maybe consonants are more masculine?
  - pcurve 13y ago
    that would be very interesting, especially if you can factor in non-alphabet based names, such as ones from Asia, and find that there is a universal pattern. Popular Chinese names: http://www.chinawhisper.com/top-50-most-common-chinese-names/ http://www.chinawhisper.com/top-50-most-common-chinese-names... Popular Japanese names: http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      Your chinese names link is inexplicably ranking entire names (look at #s 5, 6, and 8, the girl's name is 秀英 xiuying in every case; 王, 李, and 张 just happen to all be incredibly common family names. 丽 li also occurs in the list with each of those, although it does seem to be much less common for girls with the surname 李 [also pronounced li]. Or notice how the top four male names are all 伟.). But I'm pretty sure no one is interested in which names occur how often with which surnames -- would you be interested in studying the breakdown of "Lisa" among people variously surnamed Black, Smith, Jones, etc? The chinese names link does accurately indicate that a chinese girl's name is usually distinguishable by the meaning; things like "beautiful", "graceful", "quiet", "compliant", and so on are popular. I would guess phonetic considerations are a distant second (though, as illustrated by the anomalous unpopularity of 李丽, they clearly do come into it).
      - pcurve 13y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. Reading through the list of just first names, the only phonetic pattern that sticks out is that there aren't any female names that start with K. But otherwise I would agree, I doubt most non-Chinese would be able to differentiate Chinese names by gender. www.ourbabynames.co.uk/chineseboys.php www.ourbabynames.co.uk/chinesegirls.php
freshyill 13y ago
Trenton?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Don't tell me that's a girl's name now too
twelvechairs 13y ago
Counter to your point, Vivian used to be a common mans name but underwent a feminisation so that now it's almost exclusively used by women
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Certainly, there are female names that end with "n"! My thought is more along the lines of, perhaps "of all currently male names ending with n, more are strongly masculine (than other letters)"
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  To me, Leslie seems another good example.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Beverly was the one that shocked me. It's partly since I grew up with an Aunt Beverly, and partly because I'm used to names ending in -ly being feminine.
cafard 13y ago
Ann, Caitlyn, Eileen, Kathleen, Kathryn, Maureen do come to mind. I guess Morgan can go either way, but the two I know are female.

Houshalter 13y ago

One interesting fact I learned is that all words beginning with "sn" have to do with your upper mouth or nose. E.g. snarl, sneeze, snot, snog, snort, sniff.

kenjackson 13y ago
Snip, snag, snow....
- sethammons 13y ago
  Snatch, snitch, snake...
thaumasiotes 13y ago
OK, he phrased this incredibly poorly, but he's referring to an acknowledged linguistic phenomenon. further reading: http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1106.html http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1106.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonestheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonestheme