Femininity Perceptions of Cross-ethnic Forenames: A Comparative Analysis of Latina and European American Women

ABSTRACT

Research shows a tendency to ascribe high importance to the gender associations of a forename. To examine community-specific conceptions of gender as well as how groups position themselves in relation to others, this study analyzed the gender-marked perceptions of women’s forenames, with rater ethnicity and name ethnicity as independent variables. Bilingual Latina American and monolingual European American women assigned femininity ratings to a series of Hispanic, Anglo, and ethnolinguistically neutral forenames. The names also varied by the sub-attributes of translatability, letter ending, gender specificity, and semantic class, among others. Rater ethnicity significantly correlated with perceptual patterns, as both groups attributed more femininity to same-ethnicity names. However, neutral names received the highest ratings overall. Some ratings appeared to be highly dependent on experience, suggesting limited intergroup contact. The data also suggest a greater general sensitivity to gendered naming on the part of Latinas. The implications of perceptual differences for intergroup relations are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Spanish
• Latino
• names
• femininity
• gender
• ethnic identity
• intercultural perceptions

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Richard Cameron for guidance during the early phase of the study, and the anonymous reviewers for their kind and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Henceforth, the words name and forename will be used interchangeably.

2. The author recognizes that while the terms Latino and Hispanic often refer to a single U.S. minority group (for example, in the census), they are disparately preferred by minority group members due to variable histories and connotations. In this paper, Latina/x is used in reference to people (participants and the greater community) and Hispanic is used to describe names (of Spanish-origin or Hispanicized). The ethnonym Anglo is used to refer both to participants as well as names (of English origin or Anglicized).

3. “Of all the social attributes personal names may communicate information about–age, class, ethnicity, gender, religious faith–gender is the one that is communicated most consistently and most reliably. There is far more overlap between Black and white children’s names, and between the names given to children of different social classes, than there is between girls’ and boys’ names.” (Cameron, 2015, Paragraph 3).

4. In contrast with Hispanic naming practices, the final letter “a” and, to a greater degree, “y” are not exclusive to Anglo female names; they also mark male names (e.g. Joshua; Danny). Barry and Harper (2000) document that most female names end with “a”, “e” or “i”, whereas the letter “y” occurs with similar frequency for both genders. However, a “y” for males is more characteristic of abbreviated names or nicknames, which, according to Mehrabian (1997), tend to connote lower levels of success, morality and masculinity. Recent studies have documented, however, that there is increasing status tied to nicknames (Callary, 2008; Lieberson & Kenny, 2007).

5. All but the four Aztec name sets were included in the cumulative analysis of Hispanic names. These were excluded due to their marked indigenous origin and connotations, and thus their potential to skew the Hispanic name results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maryann Parada

Maryann Parada is an assistant professor of Spanish language and linguistics at California State University, Bakersfield. Her research areas include socio-onomastics, heritage language acquisition and development, and language contact.