Inferring gender from name phonology

English male and female names have different phonological properties. This article examines 3 questions about this phenomenon: How informative is phon ology about gender? Have English speakers learned this information? Does th is knowledge affect name usage? Results from a connectionist model indicate that English phonology predicts name gender quite well. Experiments found that English speakers have learned these cues. For example, names were clas sified as male or female more quickly and accurately when they had phonolog ically typical properties. Further studies demonstrated that the evolution of names in this century was affected by how male or female they sounded an d that knowledge of phonological cues to gender influences the perception a nd structure of brand names. Implications for stereotyping, individual diff erences, and language research are discussed.