Don't delude yourselves my fellow male Tracys -- both of you. Our name is feminine and not androgynous. It says so in Webster's Third College Edition dictionary. For some reason, the editors of that book say it's all right to use Dana, Robin and Stacy for either boys or girls, but not Tracy.

With this sort of official dictate that we can't possibly be male, then it's not surprising that we have to continually declare, "Yes, I'm a man."

It starts at the mailbox, because the only thing junk mailers know about you is your name. I've received free samples of tampons, and I've received brochures from schools that wanted to turn me into a stewardess. I threw those out, though I do look good in a skirt.

At least those instances are manageable because the embarrassment is confined to the walls of my home. The anguish level rises dramatically, though, when the misidenti- fication occurs in a more public forum.

For example, in college, I had an internship with a newspaper in Florida. It was set up through a national program that placed interns at participating newspapers. So it was possible for the paper not to know what the intern looked like until the day he showed up for work. The paper I was assigned to had hired a dozen interns for that summer, and the paper's intern coordinator arranged for pairs of interns to stay at a dormitory at a nearby college. I was to shack up with Tami Butler. Though it was tempting to keep my mouth shut -- "I thought Tami was a guy," I practiced saying -- I swallowed my dignity and announced my sex.

I have a theory about why people are so surprised to see a Tracy name tag on a man's chest.  My explanation? There are no male celebrities named Tracy.

Other males with feminine/masculine names can point to some male star as proof that their name is not for females only. To wit, Robin Williams, Stacy Keach, Leslie Nielsen, Terry Gilliam, Dana Andrews ... you get my point.

The only male actor named Tracy that I know of is Tracey Walter, a supporting character actor (he was the cook in City Slickers) who is not yet a household word, except in my household, where I've erected a small shrine to him.

If there were a super-famous male Tracy, then maybe more parents would name their male children after him. And then maybe the ranks of male Tracys would swell, and, bowing to the pressure, the editors at Webster's would elevate us to androgynous status.

I recently asked my parents why they named me Tracy. My father said I was named after a television entertainer of the time (I was born in 1960), but he couldn't remember the guy's full name. Thanks, Dad.

My mother said I was named after Spencer Tracy. But then shouldn't I be Spencer Koontz? Apparently, haphazardly naming children is a tradition in our family. Just ask my sister, who just narrowly missed being called Kandy Kane Koontz. Named after Citizen, I believe.