To be surprised by the names of the “posh kids” at DDs school

Wrong thread?

Medusa is a brilliant name for a cat though!

What is a dropsy?

Maybe there are some names only used by a certain class of people, you can list them if you want.
But some of the names listed on here as "low class" like Amelia and Alfie are just regular names used by all types of people.

I don't think so. They have practically taken over the area. Mass and very swift gentrification, and "us locals" are very much in the minority. No more plebs a go go, you may be happy to hear.

Unbelieveable, silly, prices, for very unremarkable, rabbit hutch size apartments and drab, dingy little terraces.
Which they think are wonderful.
The new landed gentry? Ha ha ha !!!

Unfortunately, this is now commonplace through out the country . Such is the state of UK housing.

Leave you with Coriolanus and Medusa, or Corrie and Med for our latest cat and dog names.

Completely agree.

I saw an advert featuring 'Mollie-Mae' the other day. Don't know who she is - some kind of influencer I guess - and in it I'm pretty sure she said 'Bambi's things get everywhere'. I'm just going to leave those two crackers there.

I know a lovely Rafferty.

It isn’t dismissing history, at all. It’s knowing that social history is an organic thing, and the current social situation is that those names are adopted by a certain class. Pretending a zeitgeist doesn’t exist really is delusional. Hence nobody calling their daughters Karen or Sharon,any longer. Perfectly good names, but out of sync with the times.

Not true; some public school boys are the worst for physical bullying.

Rafferty, oddly enough, has come full circle. It started off as an old Irish first name, then became a surname because many Irish surnames, like Welsh ones, were originally patronymics ("son of" understood). Now it's a first name again. But maybe it never stopped being a first name in Ireland too? Any Irish posters on here?

It's one of his middle names. At least he doesn't call himself De Pfeffel, which would definitely be (suitably!) silly.

At the end of the day it's all subjective and I don't see why the opinions of people who dismiss history should be taken seriously when it comes to how "classy" a name is.

The occasional teacher on Mumsnet who claims to teach a naughty boy called Alfie doesn't mean the name is lower class.

Royal names will always be classier than bs like Rafferty 🤷🏻‍♀️real rich people know this

Outrageous! I’d have gone for Raffa-Ti though

Ah, that was it. I couldn't remember exactly where it came from. Thanks.

Well, I suppose the poshest people are the Royals, and they mostly have classic, non-'fancy' names: Elizabeth, Margaret, Philip, Charles, Anne, Andrew, Edward, William, Harry, etc.

Quite generally speaking, I don't think names are 'posh' or otherwise. They may develop 'class' associations, but these are terribly tied to specific to specific times and places. UK, 1970s: Olivia = unusual and rather 'fancy' sounding name. UK, 2020s: Olivia = one of the most standard names for a girl. UK, 1990s: Chelsea = looked down on as 'lower class' by name-snobs. USA, 1990s: Chelsea = name of President's daughter.

Yes it was how her sister pronounced it and it stuck. The same thing happened with my granddaughter, her sister couldn't say her name and all these years later she's stuck with KK.

This tallies with my experience in education. We have a very mixed intake and the poorer areas tend to have the invented/inventive names, the double barrelling and the names shared with celebrity babies.

The newer trend is what I consider the “names of an English butler in a film” e.g. Grayson, Parker, Hudson, Trent, Oakley, Beauford etc.
Millions of those ATM.

Because people are talking about how names are used nowadays, not historically.

Zara was very unusual too at the time she was born.

Yeah, completely this. What on earth? I can understand what you mean, and how things may have been viewed in the past - but the only way we can challenge views is by making sure our kids don't let us talk like this!

Yeah i know a 16 year old Emma. Relative of mine

Let's hope they won't be interfered with in the private school by some in-bred visiting ex pupil or prefect. Oh to aspire to run with private school hounds!

Rafferty, Arabella, Florence, Theodore will be in private school with a moat and hounds to keep the likes of us out 😉…

I don't know, the only really fancy names in my family were given to the children in my gran's family who grew up in slums. They all had romantic Italian names like Lavinia and Serena. Not many of them survived childhood. I think if you're really posh you can just call your kids Bob and Jane.

Why do people take the opinions of people who don't actually know/care about royal history seriously when it comes to how classy a name is.
I always see Alfie Archie and Albie called low class names on here. They're literally short for Alfred Archibald and Albert.
Then said posters try and say "Rafferty" is upper class.

Just funny shit at this point no actual upper class person would name a child rafferty

The book hasn’t aged well. Lots of unsubstantiated facts and even more obvious biases e.g you can just feel the condescension of the authors in the chapter on ‘poor people’ names.

I think the Armchair Economist is better if you’re interested in everyday economics.

I don’t think it’s history that defines current tonality though.