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 Psychology¹, 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 analyzed² 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 vocal³ 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 purely⁴ 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 gender⁵, especially considering how gender can’t be simplified between just two ends of a spectrum⁶. 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 repulsive⁷? 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。