I’ve been noticing this a lot recently, especially on Nameberry. I don’t have a problem with it, but tend to refer to names as ‘it’ as I find giving names gender-specific pronouns is a bit weird. Surely a name is simply a genderless word until it is given to a human/animal/other object, so how come all of a sudden people have decided to change this and say things like ‘I love [name]Vivienne[/name] - she’s so glamorous’
[name]Just[/name] wondering what you thoughts are?
I say it, I don’t say he/she because that’s for living breathing things, not just a name unassigned.
Good question. I’ve started doing just that since joining nameberry.
Maybe because so many of us without children (and those waiting for more) have such vivid imaginations when it comes to these children we want. The names we assign these imaginary/someday children are just that: already assigned. If that makes sense.
I’m a writer and a hopefully someday mommy and I tend to imagine my someday kids just as I imagine my characters. I am in no way saying this is healthy. In fact I imagine I will know I am ready to actually have children when I stop thinking of them in this way.
But that’s how I think now. [name]Charlie[/name] is my future little boy. He is a he.
I’m curious to see others responses, too!
I dont do it (or not that I can think of) but it seems reasonable to me, especially when the name is established as a girls or boys name and is not unisex.
I don’t do it, but it doesn’t bother me if others do it. It seems a little odd to assign a gender to a name that isn’t attached to a person, but again, I understand how it happens - especially with favorite names. Berries study their favorites so closely that names probably do get their own personality of sorts.
I hadn’t noticed “everyone” doing it, but it rather entertains me when I do see it. I figured it was one of those “name image” things mixed with keyboard shortcut. It’s just faster and more…what? Personal? Real? to say “[name]Scarlett[/name], she’s sexy” than “[name]Scarlett[/name] makes me think of a sexy woman.” I pretty much always take it as name image when people refer to names with pronouns.
lol, I do it, but I’m not really sure why! I guess it was just one of those things that I saw someone do it and I thought it was kind of cool. It kind of brings a name to life to me, I guess. Sometimes it is easier to just say, “she’s so sweet and pretty” as opposed to “[name]Lena[/name] has a sweet and pretty feel” or something like that. I really don’t know, haha. I just do it.
I do it, sometimes. If I feel that I can picture a person with the name, then I’ll given the name a personal pronoun. However, that may be the writer in me.
I do it a lot, most of the time without thinking about it. I do assign a gender to nearly every name because that’s just how I think of names. I find it makes it easier for me to talk about them as well. In my mind each name has its own personality and image, and gender goes along with that.
This is an interesting question. In our books, [name]Pam[/name] and I never used anything but it–in fact it never occurred to us to use
gender-specific pronouns, and I must admit the first few times I saw them, I found it a bit odd. Now, much to my surprise I do
find the occasional he or she finding its way into my own blogs–another example of [name]Berry[/name] power.