I suspect that you’re thinking of El Dorado, which was a mythical golden city believed to be in South America, more specifically Columbia. It’s in Voltaire’s Candide. amongst other places.
The relationship between names, phonology, and gender has been reliably demonstrated in studies
focused on English names (Mutsukawa 2014; Cassidy et al. 1999). For example, in an analysis of male
(n = 267) and female (n = 222) students, Slater and Feinman (1985) identified several phonological gender
differences including: (i) more phonemes, more syllables, and a higher ratio of open syllables in female names
in comparison to male names; (ii) a strong stress on the first syllable of both female and male names; (iii) a
greater likelihood of female names ending in a vowel in comparison to male names; (iv) male names having a
larger percentage of voiced beginnings when names begin with consonants; and (v) male names having a higher
percentage of endings with high central unrounded vowels when names end in vowels, in comparison to female
names.
A few studies have examined phonology, gender, and names in languages other than English. In a series
of studies, Mutsukawa (2014) observed that first syllables in Japanese names illustrate gender difference. For
example, the letter “a” in the first position is found in female names whereas the letters, “k” and “s” are more
common in the name-initial position among males.
The historical analysis indicated that female names ended more frequently with the letters “a”,“e”, “i”" in
comparison to male names both in Korea and the U.S.A. As illustrated in Figure 2(a), through each decade
under review, female names were more likely to end in the letters “a”,“e”, or “i”. This finding is consistent with
observations documented by Barry and Harper (2000).
Hmm. So maybe it does affect some languages outside of English if Korean sees a similar phenomenon, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a universal, if Japanese uses different conventions.
They’re talking about a country with a Latin based language, where pretty much everything is gendered. Typically masculine words end with O and feminine words end with A.
You’re telling me Argentina is a man’s name? 🤨
It is an adjective! República Argentina means silver republic
But it was named after the Argentine, which I remember is supposed to be a mythological land of women, similar to the Amazons.
Or maybe I’m getting my ancient lores mixed up
I suspect that you’re thinking of El Dorado, which was a mythical golden city believed to be in South America, more specifically Columbia. It’s in Voltaire’s Candide. amongst other places.
I think that the “female names end in a vowel, male names in a consonant” thing might not be the norm in non-English languages.
searches
https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/download/2485/2408
Hmm. So maybe it does affect some languages outside of English if Korean sees a similar phenomenon, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a universal, if Japanese uses different conventions.
They’re talking about a country with a Latin based language, where pretty much everything is gendered. Typically masculine words end with O and feminine words end with A.