: Re: How to indicate that the source language is gender-neutral? The source language in question is Standard Chinese. It is a gender-neutral language. One big thing that English speakers complain about

@Kaufman555

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So one way to convey this idea in English is that many common English Names are unisexed names OR have diminutive names that are unisex. For example, Jesse is both a male name and a female name (Though often, it's accepted that the spelling Jesse is male, and the spelling Jessie is female, both are common variants. Another is the French Gene/Jean which in English are pronounced the same way and usually follow male/female though the latter is usually an acceptable male spelling.). For pet names, Alex is acceptable diminutive for Alexander (Male) and Alexandra (Female). A less common one is Mike, which is almost always a diminiutive of the male Michael but occasionally finds it as a pet name of a female Michelle. Gabe is short for either Gabriel (Male) or Gabrielle (Female).

English has a benefit of being a language that is filled with a high volume of lone words especially in names (in fact, most if not all common English names are anglicize versions of Hebrew names, owing in part due to the Israeli influences of Christianity. In fact, a great number of names with biblical sources have a feminized version in most European Languages (Gabriel/Gabrielle are both named for Gabriel, a "male" angel (biblical angels aren't really gendered... or even humanoid... that was Roman depictions of them. They're actually so bizarre looking that their catch phrase is "Fear Not")). This isn't just an English Phenomena, as most Europe did this Most European Languages have gendered words. Another one is the traditionally female name Ashley to a Modern Ear was originally a very exclusively male name.

While it is a bit dated, (though not so much, I'm old enough to remember when it was still acceptable) that if the gender was unknown, it was acceptable to default to He/Him as pronouns for animals and most professions (if it was traditionally a female profession, like teaching, it was defaulted to She, but Doctors are Hes until told other wise... so are engineers... and soldiers). It's not uncommon to see plots where the mean dog with a masculine name like Brutus or Killer was in some distress and the heroes were worried him... until they realized that Brutus wasn't a he because the cause of the distress was that "he" had gone into labor and was really a she. The gender neutral "He" and the use of diminutive names (especially in American naming conventions) would allow for similar gender reveals though writes do have to mind their pronouns, it's easy to avoid as certain roles have certain assumptions.

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