German
In the past, German law required parents to give their child a sex-specific name. This is no longer true, since the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany held in 2008 that there is no obligation that a name has to be sex-specific, even if it is the only one. The custom to add a second name which matches the child's legal sex is no longer required. Still unisex names of German origin are rare, most of them being nicknames rather than formal names. Examples for unisex names derived from French: Pascal (sometimes as Pascale) or Simone (pronounced like Simon in German).
Read more about this topic: Unisex Given Names
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“Some of us prefer Austrian voices risen in song to ugly German threats.”
—Ernest Lehman (b. 1920)
“A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)