How to set Grid Row with RowDefinition name?

Disclaimer: This answer is kind of a self-advertisement within the constraints alluded to by this meta post. It advertises a free open source project that I (at the time of writing this) do not earn any money with. The only gain is the knowledge that my time for writing the described control was not wasted if it helps some future visitors of this SO question.

I had exactly the same thoughts. That is why, not too long ago, I wrote a custom grid class that uses named columns and rows.

I put it on Codeplex under the MIT license: Name-Based Grid project

With that control, you can rewrite your Xaml source code as follows:

<nbg:NameBasedGrid>
    <nbg:NameBasedGrid.RowDefinitions>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Name="RowDictTitle" Height="27"/>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Name="RowSearchWord" Height="27"/>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Name="List"/>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Height="50"/>
    </nbg:NameBasedGrid.RowDefinitions>
    <nbg:NameBasedGrid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Width="1*" Name="Left"/>
        <nbg:ColumnOrRow Width="2*" Name="Right"/>
    </nbg:NameBasedGrid.ColumnDefinitions>

    <!--Row 1-->
    <TextBlock Text="Word：" VerticalAlignment="Center" Margin="10,0,0,0" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Column="Left" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Row="RowSearchWord"/>
    <TextBox Name="Search" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Column="Left" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Row="RowDictTitle" nbg:NameBasedGrid.ExtendToColumn="Right" Margin="50,2,10,2"/>

    <!--Row 2-->
    <ListBox Name="Words" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Column="Left" nbg:NameBasedGrid.Row="List" Margin="10"/>
</nbg:NameBasedGrid>

Advantage: You will be able to reference columns and rows (including column and row spans!) by name - no more counting of columns or rows, no more updating column or row spans when the layout changes.

Disadvantage: You will need to explicitly state names for all columns and rows, as numerical references are not supported at all in NameBasedGrid.