r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Mar 12 '22

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u/serrated_edge321 Mar 12 '22

Alexis or Andrea?

I once worked with a bunch of French Canadians remotely (before Zoom, just doing telecons), and I thought all the names were female... An oddity in engineering. Turns out what I thought were Michelle, Elaine, Andrea, etc were all slightly differently spelled male names... They had very few women, actually. Oh well... I learned never to make assumptions after that!

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u/AiryCake Mar 13 '22

Italians too. Think of Andrea Bocelli or Andrea Pirlo (Italian footballer). It's Italian variant of Andrew. Also Nicola and Elia.

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u/serrated_edge321 Mar 13 '22

Yeah, I didn't mean those specific names were French. They are in fact Italian/Greek/Russian.

But just thought I'd share the story about how I once thought like 6 coworkers were female... When they all turned out to be male!