Jane, it's the research which interests me, not the opinions of the various experts. What evidence did he find? I think the only evidence he will find is that from an early date in the history of the name, someone (other than Salisbury, the author of the name) decided to treat it as feminine, and everyone after that followed the leader. Your ergo is flawed because it does not keep separate the context of discovery and context of justification. Adolf Ceska 's credentials are not the issue, and in and of themselves do not resolve the issue. BTW, please don't misinterpret my insistence on this matter: I'm not angling for a change in the current usage. I just like to separate fact from fiction - or in this case, fact from prevalent usage. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net