Chinese names. Male or female?

[Zhende ma?]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but I couldn't find it.

Is there any general rule on how to tell if a Chinese person's generation name-firstname combination makes them male or female? I've get emails from China and I don't know if I should reply with 先生，小姐，夫人 or whatever. Any tips?

你们好。你可以知道中文名字的性别怎么样？

[confucius]

I usually guess from the meaning of the characters. Not many boys have the names of blossoms and few girls have the typical political "develop country" （建国）type monikers. Of course it's not always so obvious, so I suppose you just have to know quite a few names before they become apparent upon recognition. If you think the meaning sounds more masculine or feminine than you usually get it right.

If you still don't dare to guess, then write out the person's full name and add a comma plus 您好！

甄德玛,您好！

[Tetsuo]

If you're genuinely not sure, I'd go for the (姓名)﹐ 您好 option. Sometimes even the most obviously male names can turn out to be female, and vice versa. I came across someone by the name of 王福財 (IIRC, might've been a different /fu/, I can't remember atm). Now a name like that, definitely a male name. Turns out Mrs Wang isn't male after all. Thankfully I was able to catch it before the article went to print.

Then there's the famous case of Bruce Lee's Chinese name - and not 李小龍, his birth name. I don't know it in Mandarin, only Cantonese, and I don't know the characters, but it was a very female name.

I guess the same goes for English - Marion Morrison, anyone?

That said, though, if there's a character that translates out to something to do with a flower, a precious stone, or something connected with beauty, elegance, grace, etc. then there's a better than average chance it's a female name. If it's got patriotic overtones, or characters to do with strength, power, glory, honor, etc., it'll most likely be male.