Hehee, I think I should split the conversation since we're so off-topic now. Just to add a few bits to the pot:
- As similar as Mervi looks to Mervyn (and its variants) or Merve (which is in use in Turkey and was also an ancient city somewhere in modern Iran I think) it has nothing to do with either name. It was first used as a first name in 1911 and is said to be derived from the name of a medieval mansion here in Finland - but no one seems to know the actual etymology (which bothers me quite a bit).
- I've always thought that the obsession that some languages have (I'm looking at you, German and Spanish) to define EVERYTHING with a gender and then letting it affect how the rest of the sentence is formed is rather silly.
How can I know whether lettuce is "female" or broccoli "male" in the minds of Spanish people? (For the record, I don't, those were just examples.) The first few words in German I learned were: das Auto, der Hund und die Katze. Look, I understand that non-living objects are gender-neutral. But animals? I think labeling dogs as masculine and cats as feminine has HUGE implications, both for the animals and for what is considered "feminine" or "masculine" in humans.
- That being said, while we only have gender-neutral pronouns and don't use gender-defining articles (err actually we don't have articles at all OH THE SHOCK, THE HORROR
) we do have rather strict name laws that prevent (among other things) giving a "girl's" name to a boy or the other way around. Most, although not all, Finnish names are clearly boy or girl names. There have been a couple of recorded males with my name in the past though, before the name laws changed and there are still a handful of names that, when you hear them you can't be sure of the gender (especially since you can't use a gendered pronoun to give that detail). Those are mostly "old people's names" though and not fashionable so it's almost rare to hear them now.
- As similar as Mervi looks to Mervyn (and its variants) or Merve (which is in use in Turkey and was also an ancient city somewhere in modern Iran I think) it has nothing to do with either name. It was first used as a first name in 1911 and is said to be derived from the name of a medieval mansion here in Finland - but no one seems to know the actual etymology (which bothers me quite a bit).
- I've always thought that the obsession that some languages have (I'm looking at you, German and Spanish) to define EVERYTHING with a gender and then letting it affect how the rest of the sentence is formed is rather silly.
How can I know whether lettuce is "female" or broccoli "male" in the minds of Spanish people? (For the record, I don't, those were just examples.) The first few words in German I learned were: das Auto, der Hund und die Katze. Look, I understand that non-living objects are gender-neutral. But animals? I think labeling dogs as masculine and cats as feminine has HUGE implications, both for the animals and for what is considered "feminine" or "masculine" in humans.- That being said, while we only have gender-neutral pronouns and don't use gender-defining articles (err actually we don't have articles at all OH THE SHOCK, THE HORROR
) we do have rather strict name laws that prevent (among other things) giving a "girl's" name to a boy or the other way around. Most, although not all, Finnish names are clearly boy or girl names. There have been a couple of recorded males with my name in the past though, before the name laws changed and there are still a handful of names that, when you hear them you can't be sure of the gender (especially since you can't use a gendered pronoun to give that detail). Those are mostly "old people's names" though and not fashionable so it's almost rare to hear them now.
"Green nubs on the dry sticks of the clematis promised that the appearance of death was not death itself." - Ship of Destiny
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