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HelpRe: Bailey
in reply to a message by Mercy Joy
Bailey just sounds sort of ... I dunno, I think of bales of hay. Hayseed. And I've known a lot of shaggy dogs named Bailey, and zero humans. It's more masculine just because it's a surname, and I just feel like the Bail sound is masculine maybe. Ba'al, baying of hounds, bailiff, bail out.
I guess Brecken could sound girly because of Breck shampoo, similarity to the word beckon, and the -en ending. But it doesn't sound feminine to me regardless of those things. I guess it reminds me of bracken, too, which is a fern - sort of feminine.
By theoretical I just mean, if someone asks me if I like a name, or a certain kind of name, I might give an opinion that sounds very particular. But my opinion of the name given on a message board, is not exactly what I'd say if I met a person whose name didn't suit my idea of what is pleasant, or gender-appropriate.
Like I'll say that a boy name "has to be masculine enough" and has to suggest gender-appropriate images or have gender-appropriate sounds to me. If I say it isn't masculine enough for a boy, I mean it isn't enough for me to like it on a boy. I don't mean that it isn't gender appropriate enough to be OK. I'm not gender-policing. People get all touchy about gender and sex, you know, and I was just trying to flameproof myself against excess political correctness.
It's gender-appropriate, that men transgressing masculinity is seen as "worse" than women transgressing femininity. It doesn't empower women to have masculine names. It is superficial. They're still women. Femininity as artifice and all that. It's just how gender is. There's no power differential there, no value difference. It's like the difference between pink and blue, only more complicated.
I guess Brecken could sound girly because of Breck shampoo, similarity to the word beckon, and the -en ending. But it doesn't sound feminine to me regardless of those things. I guess it reminds me of bracken, too, which is a fern - sort of feminine.
By theoretical I just mean, if someone asks me if I like a name, or a certain kind of name, I might give an opinion that sounds very particular. But my opinion of the name given on a message board, is not exactly what I'd say if I met a person whose name didn't suit my idea of what is pleasant, or gender-appropriate.
Like I'll say that a boy name "has to be masculine enough" and has to suggest gender-appropriate images or have gender-appropriate sounds to me. If I say it isn't masculine enough for a boy, I mean it isn't enough for me to like it on a boy. I don't mean that it isn't gender appropriate enough to be OK. I'm not gender-policing. People get all touchy about gender and sex, you know, and I was just trying to flameproof myself against excess political correctness.
It's gender-appropriate, that men transgressing masculinity is seen as "worse" than women transgressing femininity. It doesn't empower women to have masculine names. It is superficial. They're still women. Femininity as artifice and all that. It's just how gender is. There's no power differential there, no value difference. It's like the difference between pink and blue, only more complicated.
This message was edited 4/19/2013, 5:32 PM
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