-Caveat Lector-
>In this case, I believe it is based on "Ness", as in the lake in Scotland with the
>purported monster...
>
I think a lake would be by default feminine, like a ship?
>> His/her gender is irrelevant. But if someone is called Tom,
>>or Hank, or William, aren't I entitled to assume they are male?
>
>What about the actress Michael Learned? Or the fact that John Wayne's real first
>name was Marion?
Whata about them? These are unusual. I'm sure 99% of people (if not more) called Hank,
Tom or Bill are exclusively male.
>
>What about those people whose first names are Robin or Chris?
>
What about them? There are a lot of cross-gender names, especially if you don't see
the spelling. But I don't believe Merlin is one of them.
>
>>Similarly 'Merlin' is (to my knowledge) an exclusively male name,
>>taken from the figure Merlin from the King Arthur myth cycle,
>>who is always portrayed as male.
>
>Actually, I believe originally the term 'merlin' was used as a title, and only became
>associated as a personal
>name due to the Arthurian legends. Somewhat akin to the names "Don" and "Donna",
>which originally were titles
>of Spanish nobility (e.g., "Don Juan", "Donna (or Dona with the squiggle over the
>'n') Maria"), but later were
>used as 'Christian' names in and of themselves.
Sure, but the name itself is a 'male' name. Is it French? I don't think it's Hebrew.
Maybe from Greek?
>
>
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