Which one is correct or are both correct?
The boy's name is nice.
The name of the boy is nice.
I'm really confused these two sentences? Which one is more suitable?
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Sign up to join this communityWhich one is correct or are both correct?
The boy's name is nice.
The name of the boy is nice.
I'm really confused these two sentences? Which one is more suitable?
"The name of the boy" and "the boy's name" are both grammatical, and in many contexts have the same meaning. But not all. ("The name of boy" is not grammatical).
In most contexts, even formal or literary ones, we would say "The boy's name" rather than "the name of the boy".
So "The boy's name is Michael" is quite normal, and "The name of the boy is Michael" is a bit unusual, but perfectly understandable and grammatical.
But, oddly, your example doesn't quite work: "The boy's name is nice" is fine, but "The name of the boy is nice" sounds very odd to me. I can't quite define why, I'm afraid: I just expect "The name of the boy is" to be followed by the name, and nothing else.
the question is about the Possessive structures in English - use of of and 's. both "The boy's name" and "The name of the boy" are ok as the possessor in this case is animate. However, there is a difference in emphasis. "The boy's name" emphasizes the possessor, which is the boy. whereas "The name of the boy" emphasizes the quality or attribute, which is the name (which makes you think more you are actually asking the name itself than if the name is nice).
please refer to http://linguapress.com/grammar/possessives.htm for more details.
Generally the former is preferable, but the latter is more useful if you really want to call out the specific name. For example, a famous live album from 1982 is called, "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads," which makes a point of communicating the band's name to people who had never heard of them (which would have been most people at that point).
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8266-the-name-of-this-band-is-talking-heads/
Both sentences are grammatically correct.
In this particular case, I would use either
Nice is the boy's name.
or
Nice is the name of the boy.
to prevent the ambiguity of the adjective (nice) with normal people names.