A boy called Clare

I think I might have worked out why I have so much trouble at Starbucks. Despite the fact that I am, clearly, a bird, and that my name, a bird's name, clearly backs that up, there is some confusion in the US. Turns out Clare is a dude's name. This explains why I confusingly share my name with a male racing driver.

There is a history of this sort of nonsense too. John Wayne was, famously, a boy called Marion. The most famous Tracey here is not from Birds of a Feather (not sure that would even be the case in the UK anymore actually? I should probably qualify that by saying the most famous Tracey in the UK for over 30s) it is comedian Tracey Morgan. Who is a dude. And Sidney James and Sidney Poitier would probably be quite surprised to meet Sidney Prescott, female protagonist of the Scream movies.

Apparently its quite easy to spot an English name here. You can be fairly confident that the next Madison, Caleb, Carson and Brianna that you meet will be American (I appreciate that there are some scattered around the UK, but you're unlikely to bump into them off the estate...), but a solid Gemma or Chris is very likely to be a Brit. And apparently a Clare is most likely to be a dude. Nice.