I made last week some
freelance translation work for
university and they needed my
national insurance number to pay the
salary. I received a letter and it says:
Dear Ms Pekka ...
Inland Revenue Regulations - Casual Payments
(.. and so on ..)
However, Pekka is a common
Finnish male name. This happened in
Northern Ireland.
They should have my details and stuff but still.. I mean, it doesn't bother me because when asked I don't define myself in terms of
gender but some other ways.
But when you think about names in general, the good assumption is to think that the person is female is eir name ends with 'a'. Finnish, authoritarian in many respects, do not, however, follow the rules when it comes to naming children.