There are a lot of factors that go into choosing a baby name. It could be a fandom thing, such as with the babies named Anakin or the children named after Game of Thrones characters.

给小宝宝起名字有诸多影响因素。给孩子取名阿纳金（天行者，《星球大战》中重要人物）或者根据《权力的游戏》来取名是粉丝可能会做的事情。

But it could be also simply be the way it sounds. According to a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people tend to assign certain names to boys and others to girls based on the first phoneme.

但有时候可能仅仅因为发音关系，《性格与社会心理学杂志》发表的一项新研究称，根据头一个音素，人们倾向于给男孩子取有些特定的名字，而给女孩子取其它一些特定的名字。

The researchers analyzed 270 million recorded baby names in the US from 1937 and 2013 and found that names typically assigned to boys were voiced and began with a “hard” phoneme, or one that vibrated the vocal cords, while girls had “softer” names.

研究人员分析了美国自1937年至2013年2.7亿记录在册的婴儿名字，发觉分给男孩子的名字通常是浊音发音，开头音素”有力“，或者需要震动声带。而女孩子的名字则”更加轻柔”。

To judge the difference for yourself, say your name and see if the first sound is made purely with your tongue and lips (so a “soft” name) or if you use your throat.

要亲自作鉴别，说说自己的名字，看看第一个音是不是单纯靠舌头和嘴唇发出的（这就是“柔和”的名字），还是说需要用喉咙。

Of course, this study isn’t the end of all conversations about names and gender, especially considering how gender can’t be simplified between just two ends of a spectrum. It’s also not a definite identifier of gender, as there are many names that are typically assigned to girls that start with that hard phoneme, such as Jessica, Yvonne, and Ariel.

当然，这一研究并不能对名字和性别一概而论，尤其考虑到性别并不能分化成两极来谈。这同样也不能以此绝对判断性别，因为有些典型的女孩子名字开头音素就颇有力道，如Jessica、Yvonne还有Ariel。

The study provides more insight into how we perceive sounds and the relationships between those sounds and meaning. Why do we find certain words repulsive? Why do others sound more approachable? These are questions that can crack open a language and a culture.

这项研究深入研究了我们是如何洞察声音的、如何看待声音和意义之间的联系的。缘何我们对有些特定的词反感，又觉得有些声音特别亲切？这些问题可以打开语言和文化的大门。