Re: Darlene
in reply to a message by Billina
It's darling.
I personally don't like the een ending very much. I prefer names with stress on the first syllable.
But my image of Darlene comes from a sweet, bright and educated, very diminutive, curly-haired, very softspoken Catholic woman, who was the mother of a childhood friend of mine. I always thought it was a lovely name, it's just such a dated style. There was an Arlene among my friends' moms, as well, so these names seemed really "normal" to me (white middle class). Charlene was another. That was the name of a friend's aunt - same demo, Bay Area white middle class - and my friend used it as her daughter's middle name in the 00s.
So I'm not really feeling the "downmarket" *ahem* image of Darlene, although I appreciate that trendy styles tend to end up that way. And I can hear how the sound is sort of twangy and reminds of Darling in a cloying way.
I personally don't like the een ending very much. I prefer names with stress on the first syllable.
But my image of Darlene comes from a sweet, bright and educated, very diminutive, curly-haired, very softspoken Catholic woman, who was the mother of a childhood friend of mine. I always thought it was a lovely name, it's just such a dated style. There was an Arlene among my friends' moms, as well, so these names seemed really "normal" to me (white middle class). Charlene was another. That was the name of a friend's aunt - same demo, Bay Area white middle class - and my friend used it as her daughter's middle name in the 00s.
So I'm not really feeling the "downmarket" *ahem* image of Darlene, although I appreciate that trendy styles tend to end up that way. And I can hear how the sound is sort of twangy and reminds of Darling in a cloying way.
This message was edited 9/9/2013, 11:09 AM