Hi Lars,

Yes, Shakespeare’s Juiet’s comment is pertinent. But then of course there’s Gertrude Stein’s riposte “A rose is a rose is a rose”!

Interesting Kim!

Why on earth did your publisher think Ramona was a “dirty” name?! It had no particular associations for me till I read your story, but I knew vaguely there was a novel by the American poet Helen Hunt Jackson with the name as a title. It is Spanish, isn’t it? The feminine version of Ramon?

This is another purpose for a name, of course. You weren’t looking for a name that would conjure up a cultural (prejudicial perhaps) association, but one that would work in a cross-cultural context. And you obviously succeeded.

By the way, I hope you notice I took your advice from last week and let myself go over my 800 word limit. 🙂

Hi Eva, thanks for your comment. Thanks also for the links. I did put in a link to SCB (at the end), but only to the English language start page – on the principle that most of my visitors here don’t read Swedish. (I could be worng!) The other site was new to me. I’ll explore later. I’m already thinking of a couple more articles on this subject where I might take up English and American naming practices.

Tack Pernilla! Som sakt, det kommer mera. Känner att jag har inte kommit i närheten av at tömma detta ämne.

//lars