What is the secret to a nicely sounding name? How to create euphony in children's names

Giuseppe Dennis Messina

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Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, Johannes Guten...

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Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: Naming a child is always a difficult task for parents. What makes it even harder is that the combination of first and last name needs to sound good as well. Given the fact that the last name is usually unchangeable and fixed at birth, parents want to find a first name that fits the last name with regard to word length, vowels, consonants, rhyming and rhythm. These choices often happen unconsciously and perhaps the feeling for a well-sounding name is partly determined by our cultural socialisation. In this paper combinations of first and last names will be analysed. A data set of 214 names will be examined from a linguistic point of view with the aim of finding the best combination for a euphonic name and identify underlying patterns. The analysis will show that English parents are very conservative when it comes to the sound patterns of their children's names.