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The most famous violist ever was named William Primrose, or Bill Primrose. He was Scottish but taught in America. The older generation of teachers right now is a generation of people who were around when Primrose was teaching and took master classes with him or studied this or that with him. His name comes up maybe 1 out of every 10 conversations about viola and 1 out of every 3-5 lessons or classes. At Michigan I just took a lesson with an old dude who was a protege of Primrose's, and his name came up maybe once a minute. "You know what Primrose said about the middle of the bow? It connects the tip and the frog!"

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So... my impression of this name is pretty balanced, I think. On the one hand there is the automatic sickly sweet association that comes with... Prim... attached to... Rose. I'm sort of wary of flower names in general. Flowers are delicate, pretty, and transient; no boys get flower names. And then on the other hand there's this totally stodgy old-school virtuoso thing. So I think I see the name as something that can be "reclaimed," and begs to. It's certainly more palatable as a middle name, but unless it's a middle name on a boy it doesn't do much reclaiming.

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Imagining the name Primrose on people I know...
I dunno, it's goofy. I wish I could say it wasn't. Maybe I'll dwell on it more. I'd like to say I think it's awesome. I think it might be awesome on me, for instance. Prim as a nickname for a non-prim person could be cool? I like Prim better than Rosie and Rose, because, I mean, why not just be named Rosie or Rose or Rosamundalindalina?

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Seeing it in print... Dr. Primrose Gallo, a new novel by Primrose Gynther, Primrose Coffin on oboe... I dunno, it's goofy.

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In the end I don't think it's a very good name and I don't really see what's so appealing about it. Like, the flowers are... okay... I guess... and "rose" is ok, but a really common name element...

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"Primrose"

This message was edited 11/16/2012, 10:54 AM