"Start" vs. "begin", "finish" vs. "end"

I think begin sounds natural here. I'd prefer using start when I do something on my own, for example, "I started my scooter."

You'd say "the year in which it had begun" or "was begun," not "has begun," unless you're referring to the current year and it's ongoing ("this is the year in which it has begun"). Or as Robusto suggested, you can say "the year in which it began," which is simpler and a bit more natural. I don't see any problem with any combination of begin/start and end/finish.

The word "finished" generally means completed. "End" means stopped but doesn't necessarily mean completed.

I finished doing the laundry. My laundry crusade has ended. The second sentence doesn't necessarily say I completed doing the laundry, I could have given up.

"Begin" and "end" are better for date. "Start" and "finish" are better for something which can be completed.

While 'begin' is often more formal, 'start' is often less formal. While 'start' is a sharper, more jolting word, 'begin' is softer, gentler.

Of course, there are instances where they are not interchangeable. You can't 'begin' your scooter, you can only start it. A race does not have a 'beginning' line.

In most cases, though, they are interchangeable. They mean almost the same thing. But not precisely the same thing.

So the usage can then depend on the context.

Let's say you are an author writing a novel. If the scene is an action scene or has snappy dialog, 'start' might work better to support the mood of the scene.

"Don't start with me!" seems to make better sense than "Don't begin with me!"

If the scene is more emotional and contemplative, 'begin' might work better.

"Have faith. You'll begin to see how much I love you" works better than "Have faith. You'll start to see how much I love you".

Also, if the speaking is casual between people carousing at a party or in a bar scene, 'start' likely works better than 'begin'. If it is a job interview, "I began working at Google in 2009" will sound more professional than "I started working at Google in 2009". It says the same thing, conveying the same information on the surface, but different information in subtext. And as we know, presentation is everything.

We normally conflate the two words, but they do have different shades of meaning, depending on the context. An author can get away with not paying attention to this, but an author who wants to polish their prose can raise it to the next level by choosing the right word for the right situation.

Since this site is the sister site of StackOverflow, let's cut to the chase. If I'm going to name two fields while designing a database, about the dates of the first and the last day of a designated period, which field-name pair is better?

1. dateBegin & dateEnd
2. dateStart & dateEnd
3. dateBegin & dateFinish
4. dateStart & dateFinish

dateFirst and dateLast are not considered because they have other meanings in my case.

Personally, I like 'Begin and End' better. Because as an old programmer started with Basic, this pair of keywords made me memory my childhood.

But start & end are also well used on date and time, I just found them in Bitfinex's API:

Personal conclusion: Both Begin/End Start/End are good. But, if we are talking about date or time, start and end might be better. Because start means the beginning of a trip, it's more like how the time works, a liner trace, which can be imagined in the reader's mind. Begin and End lack this kind of visualizing meaning. They should be used for doing something, but not the time approaching.