A sample of first names of real people I have met in Tennessee: Shelley (male), Carroll (male), Shelby (male), Tracey (male), Mayford (male), Corbin (male), Alger (male), Daris (I don’t recall; I met this person very briefly and got contact information that I’ve not followed up on), Jimmie (female), and Steve (female). There is also a local auto dealer whose first name is Delmar, a local real estate agent whose first name is Heath, and a famous judge whose first name was Sue (all male, to my knowledge).
Back in California, people had first names that were traditionally gender-appropriate. “James,” “Pedro,” and “Greg” are boys; “Debbie,” “Tatiana,” and “Lisa” are girls. Yes, there are ambiguous names like “Pat” and “Chris” that one finds everywhere, but that’s something that most people can take in stride. And yes, there are nicknames that can be ambiguous — “Sam” is sometimes short for “Samantha” instead of “Samuel,” or “Alex” is short for both “Alexander” and “Alexandra,” but again, that somehow seems to resolve itself pretty quickly.
It’s particularly puzzling when you only get told a person’s name verbally, and do not have a written version of the name to provide a clue. When I hear of someone named “Tracey,” I just automatically assume the person is a girl, just as I automatically assumed that “Jimmie” was a boy. In the latter case, I stood on the precipice of serious professional embarassment since “Ms. Jimmie” is an opposing lawyer in a case I’m handling, and I only saved myself by seeing a photograph of her before having to meet with her.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s kind of cool that there are unusual names like “Mayford” and “Delmar” which seem to be unique to the area. There’s no one named “Alger” in California that I ever came across. And some celebrities cruelly give their kids unusual names, too, like “Scout” and “Rain” and “Dweezil.” But gender identification is important to social interaction, and I’ve been embarrassed more than once by gender-bending Southern first names.
