Katie writes:<\/p>\n
I have a name idea that I can’t quite decide on. I was thinking about the name Jolene today and I couldn’t figure out if it sounded dated (along the lines of Joanne) or if it was spunky and refreshing? Whenever I hear it, I think of the Dolly Parton song which I love. I’m wondering if other people have a similar association with the name. Does it sound too “country bumpkin”? Too dated? Is this one of those names that needs another generation or two to sound “refreshing” again?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
My guess is that it needs a little more time. It doesn’t sound country bumpkin to me, but that -lene ending puts it in the category with Darlene, Charlene, Pauline, Arlene, Eileen, Kathleen, Colleen. The people I know with those names are about the age of my parents and grandparents (though I know one Colleen my age)—which should mean they could be right on the edge of coming back into fashion, or it could be another generation still. It seems like names come into fashion right around the time no one really knows anyone with that name anymore.<\/p>\n
If I wanted to use Jolene as an honor name, though, I think it would work GREAT: both Jo and Lena are nicknames that sound good right now; Jolie (emphasis on second syllable) or Joley (emphasis on first syllable) might work, too. I’d use Jolene before I’d use some of the other -lene names, and I think I’d be pleasantly surprised to see a Jolene on the class list—which may mean it doesn’t need another generation after all (or may just mean I’m pleasantly surprised by retro names). I see there were 293 new baby girls named Jolene in 2012—and it’s been back in the Top 1000 for the past three years, after a 16-year disappearance.<\/p>\n
What does everyone else think of the name Jolene?<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”39″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Katie writes: I have a name idea that I can’t quite decide on. I was thinking about the name Jolene today and I couldn’t figure out if it sounded dated (along the lines of Joanne) or if it was spunky and refreshing? Whenever I hear it, I think of the Dolly Parton song which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2bX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8432,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8429\/revisions\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}