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?