I sometimes get emails from Chinese people that are friends of friends, or someone I’ve never actually met, and I’m not really sure if it’s a boy or girl. There was no way to know ahead of time because it was always “tā” when my friend mentioned “tā,” and I never thought to ask. So then I get an email from someone like, 张安平 or 李娟 and I don’t the gender of the sender (it’s a mind-bender!). I don’t want to be an offender, so this is something I’d like a computer to render (ok, I’ll stop).
I know it’s not the MOST important tool in the world, but still, here’s what I want: I enter a Chinese given name (míngzi 名字) and it tells me whether it’s most likely a boy’s name or a girl’s name.
I know there are some that are ambiguous, but I get the feeling that Chinese people can tell from reading someone’s hanzi name if that person is most likely a boy or a girl. For example the inclusion of “flower” (huā 花) is a dead giveaway that it’s a girl, and “dragon” (lóng 龙) is reserved only for boys, right? Well where’s the resources that lists all those sorts of rules of thumb?
Questions for you all (if anyone’s still reading):
1. Does something like this exist? If so, where? If not, don’t you think that’s unfair since English learners can easily find out the gender of most English names?
2. If this doesn’t exist, would it be possible to create (given the technical savvy)? What would the problems be?
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