Female lawyers whose first names sound masculine or gender-ambiguous have a better chance of getting named to the bench in South Carolina than lawyers with typically female names,  a pair of economists argue. According to a post about the study over at ABA Journal:

The study finds that changing a woman’s name from something feminine, such as Sue, to a gender-ambiguous name such as Kelly increased the odds of becoming a South Carolina judge by about 5 percent, the Vancouver Sun reports. Changing the name Sue to a predominantly male name such as Cameron tripled the odds of becoming a judge, and changing it to Bruce increased the odds by a factor of five.

…

“When we see a masculine name, something in our subconscious is cued,” said one of the study authors, economics professor Bentley Coffey of Clemson University in South Carolina. “There seems to be a subtle sexist notion, even if it’s not gender discrimination per se,” he told the Vancouver Sun.

My own unscientific and cursory examination of Maryland’s circuit and district court benches reveals that whatever the case in South Carolina, Maryland has very few female judges with male or ambiguous names.

While South Carolina has female judges named Bruce, Barney, Dale and Cameron, I found no equivalent male names for female judges on our district court or on the circuit courts of the most populous counties. (There is the possibility that there are female judges with names so masculine that I didn’t even think to look up their gender, but I’d think that if Maryland had female judges named Charles or Robert, I would’ve heard of them.)

There are a few female judges with names that two generations ago might have been male, like Evelyn, Lynn and Gale, but are rarely seen on men these days. There are also female judges with slightly ambiguous names like Dana, Jamey and Halee, but if push came to shove and I were asked to guess the gender of these judges, I’d assume female, down the line. (My apologies to this recently retired male judge.)

Here are my theories on what’s going on:

1. The South Carolina study was very small. The effect might disappear if judge names were analyzed on a larger scale.

2. South Carolina voters/governors/judge-appointing bodies are more sexist than their Maryland counterparts.

But honestly? More than anything, it’s probably just that:

3. South Carolinians give their baby daughters really weird names.

The husband and wife who pleaded guilty last month to animal cruelty charges in the death of one horse and neglect of two others at their Windsor Mill home have filed appeals of their convictions, according to court records and the prosecutor in the case.

Hilton and Donna Silver were each sentenced in Baltimore County District Court to three consecutive weekends in jail and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution. No trial dates have been set, but Assistant State’s Attorney Adam Lippe said he would try to keep the Silvers together as in district court proceedings.

The appeals also complicate the future of the two surviving horses, which have recovered and are ready for adoption, Lippe said. While Donna Silver has signed a waiver relinquishing ownership of the horses, Hilton Silver, a Baltimore County lawyer, has not, Lippe said. So the horses cannot be moved until the legal issues in the case have been resolved.

Until then, the horses will remain at Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Woodbine, where they have lived since April. During last month’s hearing, Lippe said the county has spent at least $10,000 caring for the horses.