small update
11 Aug 2025 17:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinOkay so I spent the past several weeks doing Battleship (very enjoyable, would battleship straight into the sun with the rest of team Pear again, 10/10) and consequently neglected absolutely everything else fannish. Creator reveals are on Wednesday, when I'll subject you to a long post of my year-on-year Battleship statistics plus links to everything I made, as usual.
But! This update is not about that. Instead, this update is about this Chinese book review, or rather, its final paragraph:
Shortly: [list of girl names that mean "give us a boy next plz"], author finds these shocking, something I didn't get about how the author finds it women with those names changing the dì from 弟 younger brother to 娣 wife of younger brother ingenious; girls are also called names along the lines of "like a man", but you never see a man called "wishing for a little sister" or "like a woman".
The list of names (来弟、招弟、领弟、想弟、盼弟、念弟、求弟 ; 若男、亚男、胜男) is useful for when you want to write early 1900s realistic sexism, but the speculation at the end made me sad I only discovered this after works had been revealed. I wrote a matriarchy AU and there were some OC dudes I could totally have called 想妹 and 盼妹, for instance.
Anyway, I'm having some vague matriarchy AU thoughts. Will they come to anything? Probably not. Do they still exist? Yes.
But! This update is not about that. Instead, this update is about this Chinese book review, or rather, its final paragraph:
来弟、招弟、领弟、想弟、盼弟、念弟、求弟......这些触目惊心的女孩名字，看得我头皮发麻，在我身边也有叫这些名字的女孩，只不过她们的家长在“弟”字左边又添了个女字旁，变成了“娣”，招娣，这个女字旁加的很是巧妙，虽然同样是招来弟弟的意思，但是万一有人深究，她们还可以因为用这个女字旁来狡辩。除了招娣，还有若男、亚男、胜男......异曲同工之妙，倒从来没听过哪家男孩会起名叫招妹、若女、亚女、胜女，这是为啥呢？
Shortly: [list of girl names that mean "give us a boy next plz"], author finds these shocking, something I didn't get about how the author finds it women with those names changing the dì from 弟 younger brother to 娣 wife of younger brother ingenious; girls are also called names along the lines of "like a man", but you never see a man called "wishing for a little sister" or "like a woman".
The list of names (来弟、招弟、领弟、想弟、盼弟、念弟、求弟 ; 若男、亚男、胜男) is useful for when you want to write early 1900s realistic sexism, but the speculation at the end made me sad I only discovered this after works had been revealed. I wrote a matriarchy AU and there were some OC dudes I could totally have called 想妹 and 盼妹, for instance.
Anyway, I'm having some vague matriarchy AU thoughts. Will they come to anything? Probably not. Do they still exist? Yes.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-24 13:14 (UTC)something I didn't get about how the author finds it women with those names changing the dì from 弟 younger brother to 娣 wife of younger brother ingenious
I think you basically got it--"ingenious because while it has the same "looking for a little brother" meaning, it can be passed off as a girl's name because of the 女 radical".
wow, I love the idea of a matriarchy AU with 想妹 etc. as men's names; playing with language this way is SO FUN. Maybe another fic will come up when you can make something of it?