the proper sense of an English name: Nicole Carroll

[GoodTaste]

Suppose you are for the first time to read/hear Nicole Carroll, do you have a sense of that is a woman's name, or a man's name? Carroll is a woman yet my first reaction at the name is it was a man's name. I don't know why my sense went so wrong on the name.

I searched "Carroll" and found "(Biography) Lewis. real name the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. 1832–98, English writer; an Oxford mathematics don who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)" - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ! OK, a woman's name, I guessed. But it turns out that Dodgeson was a man. Why did he adopt a woman's pen name? Or is "Carroll" itself manly? I dunno.

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I'm USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and this is The Backstory, insights into our biggest stories of the week. If you'd like to get The Backstory free in your inbox every week, sign up here.

 

[Rover_KE]

I'd assume that somebody with the forename 'Nicole' is female – in fact, I'd bet the farm on it.

Her surname (family name) – 'Carroll' in this case – is irrelevant in surmising her gender.

LATER EDIT: On reflection, these days one has to be careful about this sort of thing—people can call themselves anything they choose, change their sex, and identify as either gender (or both). :roll:

(I'll hang on to the farm.)

 

[Raymott]

I've noticed that a fair few US men's names are what I'd usually call female in BrE or AusE.
Carol(e), Marion, Lynn(e), Beverly ...
With the (e), they'd generally be female.

 

[GoesStation]

I've noticed that a fair few US men's names are what I'd usually call female in BrE or AusE.
Carol(e), Marion, Lynn(e), Beverly ...
With the (e), they'd generally be female.

None of those are men's names in the United States, with a few rare exceptions.

 

[jutfrank]

I'll just repeat what Rover said above for clarity.

It's only first names that can be gendered (in the patronymic culture this woman comes from). Her first name is Nicole, which is a woman's name.

Carroll is her family name. That means everybody in her family uses it, regardless of gender.

 

[PeterCW]

It is not unknown for Irish Catholics to give boys a female saint's name as their second Christian name. The best known being Jack Mary Lynch who twice served as Taoiseach in the 60s and 70s.

EDIT: interesting, I pasted the word "Taoiseach" from Wikipedia to make sure of the spelling and it seems to have copied the link as well.

 

[Tdol]

Carroll is a woman yet my first reaction at the name is it was a man's name. I don't know why my sense went so wrong on the name.

Family names don't have gender.

 

[Skrej]

I've noticed that a fair few US men's names are what I'd usually call female in BrE or AusE.
Carol(e), Marion, Lynn(e), Beverly ...
With the (e), they'd generally be female.

I've never heard of a male Beverly. I have known men named both Marion and Lynn, but I've only met one of each in my life. As it happens, both of them lived in my college dorm.

As a male name though, I think Carol usually doubles the 'r' and/or the 'l'.

There was (or perhaps is if he's still alive) a man by name of 'Carrol' in my hometown. As a child, I of course just knew him as "Mr. Smith", so when finally heard his given name, I remember asking my mother (also a Carol) why Mr. Smith had a woman's first name. :lol:

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Suppose you see or hear Nicole Carroll for the first time. Do you have a sense it is a woman's name, or a man's name?

Nichole is a woman's first name.

Carroll is a woman

1. In your example, it's a last name, so it's neither male nor female.

2. As a first name, Carol is female and Carroll is male, and they're pronounced the same.

yet my first reaction at the name is it was a man's name. I don't know why my sense went so wrong on the name.

I searched "Carroll" and found "(Biography) Lewis. real name the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. 1832–98, English writer; an Oxford mathematics don who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)" - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ! OK, a woman's name, I guessed.

No. Lewis is a male name and Carroll is his last name.

But it turns out that Dodgeson was a man. Why did he adopt a woman's pen name?

He didn't.

Or is "Carroll" itself manly? I don't know.

Last names are gender-neutral. It's neither male nor female.

==================
I'm USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and this is The Backstory, insights into our biggest stories of the week. If you'd like to get The Backstory free in your inbox every week, sign up here.

Now you know.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've never heard of a male Beverly.

Bev (Beverley) Bevan; member of the band ELO

I have a relative (female) called Beverly. She had two sisters. They were all given unisex names - legend has it that when her mother was in hospital waiting to give birth to her (she's the eldest of the three), the lady in the next bed had given birth to a boy and named him Beverley, prompting her to think "Ooh, that's a girl's name too and I really like it", so that's what my relative was named. Her parents then decided to follow the same pattern with the next two girls.

 

[Rover_KE]

In the English-speaking world, you can never definitively infer someone's sex from their forename.

As we have seen above, parents often give their children ambiguous names and anybody can change their name – informally or legally – to anything at all, for a variety of reasons.

Examples frequently occur in the worlds of entertainment and authorship, to name but two.

 

[Raymott]

I've never heard of a male Beverly.

That's possible. Here's a few (I note that they are not contemporary men:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Thomas_Galloway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Randolph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Randolph_Mason

And here's a list where there are a few more: "Beverley (name) Wikipedia.
.