대한언어학회 전자저널

Kim, Jong-mi; Go, U-ri & Obasi, Sharon N. (2024). Phonology of gendered names in linguistically comparable countries: Korea, Bangladesh, Britain, and the United States. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 32(1), 93-112. Prior investigations of the phonology of names have revealed both shared and distinct phonological patterns. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive comparison of given names from linguistically diverse and comparable countries, namely Bangladesh, South Korea, Britain, and the United States. We aimed to determine the commonalities and variations in the attribution of gender to names based on phonological features. The findings elucidated a prevalent phonological pattern associated with gender, specifically centered on final vowel letters a, e, and i, across all four countries. However, notable disparities in both frequency and pattern emerged, reflecting different familial relationships: unrelated for English and Korean, related for English and Bengali, and identical for British and American English. This cross-linguistic evidence of the gender specificity of final vowel letters in names indicates that certain aspects of name phonology are universally gender-specific.

# phon-onomastics # name phonology # vowels # gender # Korean names # English names # Bangladeshi names # cross-linguistic name analysis