Am I a laughing stock?

I call our 3 bed semi "chez surname" all the time. It's funny! Of course I don't mean it seriously!! Everyone on here going "it's cringe" needs to develop a sense of humour, pathetic.

OP your sister was being mean, sorry. Probably just jealous cause she has no chat.

turns out almost my entire family have been slagging me off for it for years and my sister hinted that my friends have too.

You should be more concerned about what the broader picture re what this says about your family and friends rather than than than this one particular issue

They probably are laughing but like you said, it's a joke, jokes are supposed to make people laugh.

I completely agree.

Their behaviour is dreadful.

I know someone who calls her semi “street name” Manor and someone else who calls her 1 bedroom extension The West Wing. I avoid them both like the plague!

Previous owners did this to our house and did the proper change of address process, so its xxxx House.

It’s bloody stupid and I never use it, but it obviously ends up on the majority of the post we get.

Not bothered about being outed OP are you?!

You sound full of joy!

My dad sometimes says "meet you back at the ranch " to refer to his house. He lives on a 1990s housing estate.

actually I feel bad for @CovidHeadache

at worst they’ve carried a pun on for too long.

it’s irrelevant if it’s pretentious or wankey or cringe.

what’s relevant is her friends and family have been ripping the piss out of her behind her back for a considerable length of time and instead of having the balls to tell her to her face ages ago they’ve continued to abuse her hospitality whilst slagging off the invites for that hospitality.

now that’s really wankey

I think it’s a bit cringey but I would laugh it off and just stop using it. If people are happy to keep coming to your events, they obviously like you and enjoy coming and rather than mocking you, they’ve probs just thought it’s a bit irritating but it hasn’t overly changed their opinion of you. It’ll be ok!

There's a lady near us has recently moved into a small end terraced cottage and has put up a sign saying along the lines of "Apple Gate farm", she's even set up a little honestly box shop selling pumpkins she's bought from the supermarket.

I wouldn't worry about it, just stop using the term. Stock words and phrases of that nature become hackneyed over time, it has probably had its day, no more than that.

Leave it behind and move on, no harm done, nobody has died. Your home is still your castle to you.

We just call our house ‘Our House’.
It is large, Victorian and detached but when we bought it one of our friends started calling it ‘TrickyTowers’, accompanied by a sneer.

Yeah sorry but I would have been taking the piss out of you too. It sounds ridiculous.

I once read of a couple who moved to the UK from the Philippines, whose English language skills were not the best.

They had heard of the idea of smashing the couple's names together to make a house name in the 'Bevron' style and had a sign made. Unfortunately, their names were Constance and Dominic...

I suppose it could have been much worse if their names had been Sharon and Teddy

I think this. There's often a bit of siblings rivalry which mean that they are designed to find anythjng slightly wanky and take the piss.

For me, I would find it a bit twee but I don't find it half as annoying as people referring to their partner as Mr xxx, the other half, the better half, or some elaborate version of their name. As long as you don't do that as well I would just think it was mildly amusing 😁

I suspect they laugh at it in a fairly affectionate way but I think it’s probably best to phase it out now.

I live in a road with a number of similar houses, I’ll pretend its name is Oplarden Road. One neighbour has named their house Oplarden House. Which I think is weird, like they’re the Manor House or something and we’re their surrounding estate. Whereas the only estate in reality is a housing estate.

I know someone who called their house Moot Grange, cos it had no mortgage.

Now, that’s cringey!

The thing is, you said you were using it as a joke on here but it seems like you were using it seriously in real life. People clearly didn’t understand that you were doing so in a tongue in cheek manner, as you totally bought into it yourself.

Someone I am friends with on FB calls his house this too. It's never made me bat an eyelid tbh.

I would start going overboard to really annoy people.
Get a hand carved wooden sign.
Make it your official address.
Start calling parts of your house, the East wing, the West Wing and the Parlour.
At this point you are going to either have to stop saying it or go all in. I would go all in.
Unless you actually have the largest house out of everyone you know and have been calling your house 'the towers' just to show off about your massive house??

@CovidHeadache It clearly started off as a joke and YANBU for thinking they should have said something much sooner, but now they have, just replace it with "come to ours" - it will take very little time for "Surname Towers" to be forgotten about and no, I don't think you're a laughing stock. In the grand scheme of life and the universe, it's actually quite trivial so don't worry about it OP.

They sound like a bunch of judgmental arses. Plus ones that have the advantage of your hospitality. Shame on them.
Continue now you know and style it out. You’re not a laughing stock. They are miserable bums.

I thought you called it that as a reference to Fawlty Towers (ie chaos and family mishaps), and thus being self deprecating … but if its because it’s a 3 storey town house, it kind of comes off as pretentious. I’d just take it on board and stop using it as whatever you meant by the joke has got lost over time.

I definitely find it mildly amusing, not cringey. It’s self-deprecating, not showing-off.
But there are very few universally funny jokes. It’s natural really that not everyone would take the same way. The ones who don’t just don’t have the same sense of humour as you.
I’m guessing it’s basically spoiled now anyway. You’re never going to feel the same way about it. Although, if I were you, I would still use it for any invitations that are just for your mum and sister because otherwise they will think their mean-spirited remarks got to you.