A friend and I are currently arguing about why [name]Augustine[/name] is considered a boys name, I explained to her that here St. [name]Augustin[/name] is called by the feminine version [name]Augustine[/name] but I have no explanation as to why or when this happened. Edit: My friend thinks calling St. Augustin by Augustine is insulting because it’s a girls name, this is what I cannot explain to her but it’s a very interesting view on names that we debate here quite a bit.
I feel like there must be a historical or etymological reason since every other culture (that I can think of) still uses a masculine version of the name. The same goes for [name]Constantin[/name]. I’ve googled it but I can’t really find anything, can someone help me out??? [name]TIA[/name]!
[name]Do[/name] you consider these names male, female or unisex and if so why?
To me, [name]Augustin[/name] (uh-[name]GUS[/name]-tin) is male, and [name]Augustine[/name] (AW-gus-teen) is female. I don’t have any historic proof to back this up, though.
[name]Augustine[/name] is feminine to me. I don’t know anyone with the name, so this is probably influenced by the novel Everything is Illuminated. [name]Augustin[/name], however, is masculine to me.
I would assume that [name]Augustine[/name] is a a girl. It looks “French” to me although it is not. Agustina would be the Spanish form. [name]Augustin[/name] would be the male alternative.
@megladonization historically speaking you are right, St. Augustin was known by other names in other cultures but aside from English speakers, never as Augustine. In fact all three St. Augustines were known as Augustin or another male form of it first.
@ninak Augustine is the French female version of Augustin so you’re right it is feminine.
To me, [name]Augustine[/name] is a male name, and no one has ever asked me otherwise when they see the name. (It is a family name in my Italian family; my father is [name]Augustine[/name] III, and I have a male cousin with the first name as well as my brother and another cousin with it as their middle names. When the name has been written out, I’ve never had anyone question whether it was a male or female that had that name.
There are lots of things in [name]Florida[/name], most importantly the city of St. [name]Augustine[/name], named after [name]Augustine[/name] of Hippo ([name]Aurelius[/name] Augustinus). To me [name]Augustine[/name] has always been a boy name. I’ve never thought otherwise
Because it was founded by the Spanish, the city’s original name is San [name]Agustin[/name] “AW-goo-steen”. In English it was translated to [name]Augustine[/name] because that’s close to way it’s supposed to be said “AW-guh-steen”. If it were spelled [name]Augustin[/name] then it would be the wrong pronunciation “uh-[name]GUS[/name]-tin”
I’ve always assumed that [name]Augustine[/name] was a male name, and I only just stopped to think why. I think I just assumed it followed a similar evolution to Constantius/Constantinus --> [name]Constantine[/name] or Florentinus --> [name]Florentine[/name], both of while are purely male names to me (although I understand that this is certainly not so for everyone, so my logic is a bit circuitous - [name]Augustine[/name] is a boy name because [name]Constantine[/name] is a boy name; [name]Constantine[/name] is a boy name because [name]Augustine[/name] is a boy name… if we leave emperors and saints out of it.) The emperor [name]Constantine[/name]'s name as the Romans knew it was Constantinus, but we now know him by [name]Constantine[/name]. I would posit that the name [name]Augustine[/name] has a similar history of modification and adaptation to change from [name]Augustus[/name] to [name]Augustine[/name].
Thanks for the input guys this has been really enlightening when it comes to cultural aspects of names which is my favorite topic when talking about names!
As for our argument my friend is 100% not willing to budge on her opinion. In her mind because they only recognize the masculine versions for the emporer and saint than that’s the only correct answer, in fact she was unaware that anyone uses the “ine” version at all. I always assumed the rest of Europe was the same way about assigning a male sex to these names but now I’m not so sure.
Personally I agree with her that English speakers are using a feminine name but I think that’s fine, still I’d love to know why we chose the “ine” ending so I’m going to keep exploring and thanks to @nat108 I’m beginning to think maybe it had to do with prn of the Spanish names do I’m going to start there.