AMD4 Prinzessin Horst

For this AMD I read “Prinzessin Horst.” The layout was cute, as a tabloid following the royal family. It’s interesting because I didn’t notice anything unusual about the title “Prinzessin Horst” at first, where to German readers the contrast would have intrigued and meant something to them. Horst is a typically male name, so a complete English translation would be something like “Princess Bob.” I didn’t think that Horst sounded inherently masculine, but I suppose that to a non-native English speaker Bob wouldn’t sound super masculine either.

It was interesting to read this because I learned a lot of German names. The female names were easier to tell that they were supposed to be feminine, a lot of them ended in "-ia" or "-a". But many of the male names that were given to women or girls in the book seemed to suit them. This might just have to do with the trend in America of naming girls traditionally boys' names like Taylor, Evan, or Jordan.

An interesting language thing I noticed was with the spelling of "heißen." In the book it was spelled "heisse" and "heisst," without the ß. I knew that two S's could be substituted for a ß but I'm still not sure why the writer chose that spelling.