外國人是如何區分男生或女生的名字呢？

我是Lindsay，我是現住在倫敦的美國人，也是「最好英文名」的創始人。最好英文名是給中國人提供最全面，最多訪客，更是最被信任的取英文名的網上資源。

Hi Guys, Lindsay here, I am American living in London and founder of Best English Name - Chinas most visited and trusted resource for choosing an English name!

當我第一次聽說很多中國人不能從某些英文名字上分辨男女的時候，我非常的吃驚！對於英語為母語的人來說，從名字上不能明確地說明這個人是男性或是女性，是非常的奇怪。大多數情況下，英文名里有部分是女性的名字，一部分則專為男性名字。所以，很多情況下是絕對不會混淆的。另外，當你從小生活在一個國家，你可以從很多地方學習到英文名的「性別之分」，例如在電視劇，電影，朋友，家人，或是從歷史人物中可以得知這個名字是男生或女生的。

Actually when I first heard the Chinese people cannot really differentiate between males and females based on their name, I was really shocked! It would be a strange to us if it was hard to tell if people were male or females based on their name. When it comes to English names, for the most part, we have names that are mainly used by girls and names that are mainly used by boys. This just comes from knowing which names are which. Growing up you get a sense of what name belongs to which sex through people in tv shows, movies, your friends and family, as well as when you start to learn about history - world leaders, presidents, monarchs, etc.

讓我來簡單地給你們普及一下如何區別英文名中的性別。有一些很經典的名字是來源於皇室。好幾個世紀以來，這些名字通常是在歷史上保存著它的性別區分。這些經典的英文名包含以下幾個：

1. If I was to try and explain it, I would explain that you have the more classic male and female names that are often coming from Royal families and historically have remained masculine or feminine names for centuries. These names include:

1. Philip
2. Charles
3. William
4. Henry
5. George
6. Elizabeth
7. Victoria
8. Katherine
9. Mary
10. Margaret

從著名的歷史人物中，我們也可以分辨出這些名字分別適用於男性或女性。然而，有些名字是來源於宗教信仰，它們通常是代表著男性。以下列出了來源於歷史人物，或是帶有宗教色彩的名字：

2. These are names that have remained masculine and feminine because of the important people who have used them throughout history. Then there are names that have religious origins and are used by male characters in religious texts. These are names like:

1. Joseph
2. Luke
3. Matthew
4. John
5. Mark
6. Elizabeth
7. Rebecca
8. Abigail
9. Leah
10. Ruth

有一部分的名字有著以上相同的原因。它們同樣是被使用了好幾個世紀。在歷史上，從男性名字衍生到適用於女性的名字。如果一個女生名為Joseph，會給人有相當奇怪的感覺。同樣，一個男子被取名為Leah，聽起來也十分彆扭。但是，這就是我準備要說的下一點！慢慢地，很多男性的名字都有適用於女性的版本。通常，從一個男性衍變成女性名字，必須在男性名字的最後改成適用於女性名字的字母。例如以下的名字：

3. These names have remained masculine or feminine for the same reasons - they were very established in history and for centuries they belonged to males and females. It would be very strange to name a female Joseph and a man Leah. But this brings me to my next point! There are feminine versions of masculine names, the usually entails changing the end of a masculine name to make it more feminine. Here are some examples:

1. George → Georgina
2. Joseph → Josephina
3. Alexander → Alexandra
4. Daniel → Daniella
5. Phillip → Philippa

從而看出，這些女性名字都在最後添加了字母「A」。但請注意哦！這並不意味著所有以字母「A」結尾的名字都是屬於女性名字，還是有很多男性英文名是以字母「A」結尾的。

As you can see, adding A to the end of the name often makes it female. Note, this does not mean that all names that end in 「A」 are female names, there are still male names that end in A.

另外，還有一部分的英文名，可以是男女皆宜的。這樣的情況下，甚至母語為英文的人也不是太確定，對方是男性還是女性。例如：兩個商業人士約出來見面，喝杯咖啡，但是他們從來沒見過面，平日只是在郵件中溝通，其中一位的英文名是Alex。這時，另外一位就會認為對方是一位男生。但其實，Alex也可以是女生的名字哦。在相似的情況下，如果有人的名字是男女皆宜的，他們會先讓對方知道。例如：「我是Alexandra，Alex是我名字的縮寫」。這樣，對方就準確地知道她是女性。有些名字雖是男女皆宜，但比較獨特的，像「Brandon」這個名字。介紹自己時，通常會說「順便說一下，我是女生」。因為當大家聽到「Brandon」這個名字時，難以想像出對方是個女生。但對於女生來說，這絕不是一個奇怪的名字。

4. Then there are unisex names that really could be used for either males or females. In this case, even foreigners do not a have a way of know if it is a male or females. For example if 2 business people are meeting for coffee but they have only ever met on email and one of their names is Alex - people might be picturing a male to find in the cafe, but in fact Alex can also be a girls names. Sometimes when people have unisex names and they are in this situation, they will let the person know - 「I am Alexandra, Alex for short」, so people know its a female. People who have more unique unisex names like 「Brandon」 for example, will say, I am a female, by the way. Almost no one would picture a female, when they hear the name 「Brandon」, but its also not a strange name for a female.

下面有三種不同類型的男女皆宜的名字：

There are three different types of unisex names:

1. 女性英文名被男性使用
   Feminine names used by Males

2. 男性化的名字被女性使用
   Masculine names used by Females

3. 某些名字聽起來是分不出是男性化和女性化。

   Names that are equally used and sound both masculine and feminine

女性化但男性也在使用的英文名：

Feminine feeling names used by males:

1. Lynn
2. Avery
3. Quinn
4. Allie
5. Riley
6. Kendal
7. Hayden

男性化但女生也可以使用的英文名：

Masculine feeling names used by females:

1. Blake
2. Payton
3. Parker
4. Jordan
5. Charlie
6. Elliot
7. Devon

在現代化名字的趨勢里，更普遍的是女生使用男生的名字。特別在美國，這是一個非常潮流的名字的趨勢。在1950年到1960年間，更多男性使用女性的名字，但僅僅限於在這十年之間。現在，有很多藝人都為自己的女孩取一個非常男性化的名字。

In modern name trends, it is more common for women to take the more masculine names - especially in the US. This is a very popular name trend. It was more common in the 1950s and 1960s for men to have more feminine names. Celebrities have taken this name trend even further by picking VERY masculine names for their children!

例如：

For example:

瑞安·雷諾茲和布萊克·萊弗利都為他們的寶貝女兒取名為James。她將要一輩子都要和別人說她其實是女生哦！

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively named their daughter James. She will have to tell people for the rest of her life that she is a woman...

還有，米拉·庫尼斯和阿什頓·庫徹為女兒取名為Wyatt。這個名字比較現代化，所以這個名字還不能定義為「男女皆宜」的名字上，而且99.99%的人都會以為她是男生哦。

And Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher named their daughter Wyatt. This is a more modern name, so the rules arent as defined about this name, but 99.99% of the time people will think she is a male.

某一天，我和朋友在討論英文名里的「Sam」。我知道很多女生都用「Sam」來作為英文名「Samantha」的縮寫版本。而她卻認識很多男生名為「Sam」是英文名「Samuel」的縮寫版。我當時解釋說「無論什麼時候，當我聽到名字「Sam」，我都會想像是個女生」，但她卻說她只會想像是個男性。所以，這真的是因人而異。

The other day my friend and I were discussing the name 「Sam」 - I know more female 「Sam」 - the shortened version of 「Samantha」. She knows more males named 「Sam」 - the shortened version of 「Samuel」. I was explaining that whenever I hear the name 「Sam」, I think of a girl but she said she only thinks of a male! So its really different for each person!

對於一個猜不到性別的名字來說，肯定是有很多好處和壞處。一個名為「Brandon」的女生告訴我，她非常喜歡她的名字，因為很多人在郵件里都猜不到她是男或女的。在商業里，她覺得取的名字聽起來越像男生，就越有優勢。當然，這個問題也給很多人帶來許多的困擾。

There are positives and negatives to having a name that people arent sure of being male or female. A woman named 「Brandon」 once told me that she really likes her name because in emails people do not know if she is male or female, and sometimes sounding a bit more male can work to her advantage in business. Other people find it really frustrating to have a name that sounds really masculine or feminine when they are the opposite sex.

因此！最重要的答案就是，我們也不總是能聽名字就知道對方的性別！但大部分英文名的「性別之分」都是在歷史上已經被定義了，我們只是跟著定義來，就不會出差錯！

So there you go! The short answer is, we dont always know! But for the most part there are names that follow some hard fast rules.

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