In summation - Shakespeare was right, and L.M. Montgomery is wrong.

I have to disagree with this quote - the word that we use for that flower - "rose" - evolved, as basically all words in the English language have, over a very long period of time, being borrowed and modified from other, older languages. If an ancestor of the word "thistle" had been chosen for its name, then that word and its evolution(s) would have ALWAYS had the connotation of that flower, just as the word "rose" and its predecessors do and did. Therefore, in this alternate timeline, what we currently call "roses" would instead be "thistles" and "thistles" would, for brevity's sake, be "roses", and humanity would enjoy the smell of thistles and be annoyed at stepping on a rose. Any word in any language could have been conceived and then evolved entirely differently, and we, in the year 2020, would be none the wiser, because it is only the meaning and connotation that truly matter.

From the erstwhile Wm Shakespeare, in his Romeo and Julet. In comparison to a rose's name is Juliet's lament over the family name of Romeo. He was correct on many points, and so too was her Ladyship, Lucy Maude Montgomery. Names and all words have a great deep meaning on their own, and the name of things, the words we use, are no trivial matter.