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  • I know a/the beautiful girl who goes by the name of Jane.

  • I have the deepest affection for a/the beautiful girl who goes by the name of Jane.

In both instances, the definite article implies that the listener knows who Jane is, while the indefinite article doesn't have this implication—the listener may or may not know who Jane is.

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I would not agree with that interpretation.

In both cases, the article a sounds like the right one to use, and the article the sounds incorrect. The use of the in those sentences would seem to imply there is only one beautiful girl named Jane on the entire planet. Even if our enamored speaker feels that way about his beloved Jane, the article the still sounds off.

Also, I don't think the article implies that the listener knows (or doesn't know) Jane. The way the sentence is structured, I would guess that the listener doesn't know Jane, but that's not because of the article. Rather, the phrase

...who goes by the name of Jane

seems like something we'd use when speaking about people we presume the listener doesn't know. If the listener doesn't know Jane, I would say:

I know a beautiful girl named Jane.

but, if the listener does know Jane, I think I'd phrase it more like this:

Jane is a beautiful girl, don't you think?

As a footnote, I would only use the in this context when where was indeed only one entity I was talking about; perhaps:

The city worshipped the beautiful goddess Athena.

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  • @Sherlock: You're quite welcome. I hope you keep asking questions here. If you do, you might want to wait awhile before accepting answers. (I recommend somewhere between 12 and 36 hours.) If you wait a little longer, you increase your chances of getting a second or third opinion, which might be helpful for you, and it could be beneficial for the community as a whole, too.
    – J.R. ♦
    Jul 8, 2013 at 1:16
  • I'll keep that in mind.
    – Sherlock
    Jul 8, 2013 at 6:55
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The differences here are nice and subtle! Both forms are grammatical, and which you'd use depends on your meaning.

I know a/the the beautiful girl who goes by the name of Jane.

Using a implies that your listener does not know her, so for your listener Jane is "just a name" and you have to use the indefinite a.

Whereas using the implies that several beautiful girls are known to your listener, and you're talking only about the one named Jane (if there were 2 or more named Jane, you'd have to add more information to make it clear which Jane you know).

I have the deepest affection for a/the beautiful girl who goes by the name of Jane.

The same rule applies here: if Jane is not known to your listener, then a; if she/he does know Jane as one of at least 2 beautiful girls known to you both, the.

"Goes by the name of" is usually taken to mean that the name on her birth-certificate is not "Jane", but she uses "Jane" for reasons of her own.

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