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ArchivesStephanie`s Gender
Now like most people I assume that Stephanie is the feminine form of Stpehen. But I was reading Raffi `s novel Khent, written about Armenians at the time of the mid-late 19th century. One of the charcters is a girl named Lila who has pretended to be a boy since birth to avoid being kidnapped by Kurdish tribesmen. Her "male" name is Stephanie. What is this? Was Stephanie ever used on males as well? Is there a completely differently origined name that just happens to be spelt the same way?
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Your problem is probably that you are reading the older English translation of this book, done sometime before 1917 by Jane Wingate. She translated the Armenian names used in the original story as Lila and Stephanie. The more modern translation by Donald Abcarian uses Lala and Stepanig, which are probably closer to the original Armenian forms.
Stephanie was originally a French name. It was not used for girls in English speaking countries to any extent until after Jane Wingate left the USA to live in Turkey. Her translation was done before 1917. She probably did not realize that Stephanie would sound "feminine" to modern readers, any more than someone back in 1917 would have realized that Jamie and Leslie would sound "feminine" to most Americans in 2009. She was just trying to create a pet form for Stephan that would correspond to the Armenian name used by the original author. :)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ftabkbw-x5QC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=raffi+fool+stepanig&source=bl&ots=Lj40MyAVfy&sig=oOTJd2fCjStB1HggG0PsZEe1r6g&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA124,M1
Stephanie was originally a French name. It was not used for girls in English speaking countries to any extent until after Jane Wingate left the USA to live in Turkey. Her translation was done before 1917. She probably did not realize that Stephanie would sound "feminine" to modern readers, any more than someone back in 1917 would have realized that Jamie and Leslie would sound "feminine" to most Americans in 2009. She was just trying to create a pet form for Stephan that would correspond to the Armenian name used by the original author. :)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ftabkbw-x5QC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=raffi+fool+stepanig&source=bl&ots=Lj40MyAVfy&sig=oOTJd2fCjStB1HggG0PsZEe1r6g&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA124,M1
This message was edited 2/2/2009, 6:57 AM
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