question about gender of two names

[Bindu Bhat]

Kavita Krishnakumar Pandit

Kavita is Female. In Gujarat, women write their husband's first name after 
their personal name and before their last name or surname. So it becomes 
like a middle name. To me it looks like Krishnakumar is Kavita's husband's 
name. Mostly men write their father's first name as their middle name in 
Gujarat and some parts of Maharashtra. I am not sure if in other parts of 
India also this practice is prevalent.

In Rajasthan, Tilak would be a man's name. Tilak even in the sense of 
ornament would be masculine.

Hope this helps.
Bindu

--On 22 ??????? 2005 15:49 -0400 Allen W Thrasher <athr at LOC.GOV> wrote:

> A patron needs to know the gender of this person:
>
> PANDIT, Kavita Krishnakumar  (1956- )
>
> Temporal and Spatial Variation in Sectoral Labor Allocation during
> Development.  Ohio State University [United States], 1987 (Ph.D. in
> Geography).  Chairperson/Major Adviser: Emilio Casetti.  xi, 159p.  DAI
> 48, no.9 (Mar. 1988): 2423-A; UM 8726704.
>
> Kavita of course is female, but the middle name is male.  Is there any
> part of the country where a woman may have a male middle name?  Could
> this be from  a patronimic naming system, as in the Maharashtrian 'middle
> names'?   Attempts to get the information from Ohio State have been
> unavailing because of privacy laws (sic).
>
> A similar question from another source:  In Rajasthan would Tilak be a
> man's given name or a woman's?  In Sanskrit the common noun is masculine,
> but on the other hand one might speculate the meaning, "ornament," would
> also be appropriate for a woman.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Allen
>
> Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D., Senior Reference Librarian
> South Asia Team, Asian Division
> Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
> 101 Independence Ave., S.E.
> Washington, DC 20540-4810
> tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
> The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of
> Congress.