``Are the \textit{genre} and the \textit{Geschlecht} one and the same number?'' An inquiry into Alfred Clebsch's \textit{Geschlecht} (Q2660406)

The paper is devoted to the history of the notion of genus. It is usually attributed to Bernhard Riemann while the original name \textit{Gechlecht} is credited to Alfred Clebsch. It is shown that Clebsch's act of naming was rooted in a projective geometric reinterpretations of Riemann's research and that \textit{Geschlecht} was actually a different notion than that of Riemann. The author proves that until the beginning of the 1880s mathematicians clearly distinguished between the notions of Clebsch and Riemann. The former was mainly associated with algebraic curves and the latter with surfaces and Riemann surfaces.