The most posh/classy names in top 100

"No, I can't let Eloise through. That's a hideously common name, if we're debating that sort of thing"

Hmm - Lady Eloise Taylor - daughter of Lady Helen Taylor Grand daughter to the Duke and Duchess of Kent, 29th in sucession to the throne.

Lady Eloise Anson - Aristocratic model, daughter of the late Lord Litchfield.

And of course - "Her highborn Countess Eloise Sophie Beatrix Laurence of Orange-Nassau", member of the Dutch royal household and 6th in line for the Dutch throne.

But of course, Gwendoline - by all means go ahead and tell these women that they're chavs hideously common. .

Of course, this goes to prove my original point that true posh upper class have normal names - of which Eloise is one!

Not many of them around anymore methinks. Well, of an appropriate marrying age that be. Tut tut tut indeed. Commoners eh? They're bleeding everywhere

It is. Since they abandoned the blue blooded virgins it's all gone tits up

It's all them commoners marrying in innit

No, I can't let Eloise through. That's a hideously common name, if we're debating that sort of thing

But as there is now a Savannah in line to the throne, albeit way down the list, I don't think we can rely on the royals anymore :o

It was Beatrice.

Incidentally, didn't Sarah Ferguson want to name one of her daughters Annabel, but it was rejected by the queen for being too 'common'?

Trouble is the names most people associate as 'posh' are actually middle class names rather than aristocratic names, which tend to be much more ordinary.

Here are a few names from Debrett's guide to heirs to the throne (outside the immediate royal family), so Aristocratic and therefore, I would count as posh

Charles
Samuel
Arthur
Columbus
Cassius
Frederick
There should also be a Nicholas here, but he's now Catholic so no longer in line.

Margarita
Sarah
Davina
Rose
Amelia
Helen
Eloise
Estella

Not a Tarquin or a Persephone in sight!! (Although Cassius sails close to the middle class wind). But truly posh people have ordinary names. 'Posh' names tend not to belong to posh people at all, just mere wannabes!!

Well I want to play but I don't see the list!

In my oh so humble opinion, Samuel and Eleanora are the best names ever. :o

I'll play - In my very humble opinion.....

Charlotte, Elizabeth, Imogen, Georgia, Sophia, Amelia

and

William, George, Alexander, James, Charles and Sebastian

all have a certain amount of class.

In answer to your question, in the order they appear in the list IMO names which are not so much posh as classy and classic and bridge social divides:

Thomas, William, James, George, Joseph, Benjamin, Alexander, Henry, Matthew, Edward, Michael, Charles, Sebastian, David, John, Robert, Christopher, Frederick

Olivia, Emily, Sophie, Grace, Charlotte, Isabella/Isabelle/Isobel, Hannah, Imogen, Emma, Elizabeth, Matilda, Alice, Georgia, Eleanor, Anna, Rebecca, Sarah/Sara, Martha, Alexandra, Harriet, Lydia, Maria

Just IMHO of course.

Old ladyish in the sense that nobody had used it since Victorian times!

Really, I've never known any old ladies called Beatrice, so it's just never had that association for me. I don't think it's ever been a particularly common name, has it?

Beatrice was pretty old ladyish in 1988 irrc, hence 'unusable.' Housemaid chic was just starting to come in (Maisie, Molly etc) but the real old lady names you find popular on this forum were a laughing stock.

Well, it didn't surprise me much at the time because I assumed they had looked in the family history for a pretty name that hadn't been given for a while. One of QV's daughters was Beatrice. Then there is Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Eleanor & Matilda are also royal names.

I remember going "she's called it what?????
I absolutely love it now, and always try and persuade people to use it.

Oh goodo. I have two smart daughters' names, one king and a nondescript one!

I think people are forgetting how unusual Beatrice was for babies in 1988. It was on a parr with announcing birth of baby Ethelreid or baby Hilda today.

I'm guessing people may have considered Beatrice unusable because Fergie called her DD Beatrice, so people may have been worried about it becoming popular chavvy

Smart girls names all end in 'a'. Smart boys names are British Kings. So says the Sloane Ranger handbook. Simples :-)

I did say the vast majority of the population! and to be fair, it raised eyebrows in 1988, even from royalty.... Eleanor and Matilda sound more conventionally 'pretty' than Beatrice. More usable, regardless of fashions imo.

Why on earth was Beatrice "considered unusable" in 1988? I might have used it had things been otherwise. Mind you, not many people used Eleanor and Matilda then and I had them ahead of Beatrice. Guess i was just ahead of my time

Sophie, Charlotte, Eleanor, Harriet, Francesca

William, Samuel, George, Edward.

I think that's what people would like to believe, and it would be nice if it were true. But the fact is that in the year 1988 'Beatrice' was considered unusable, for varying reasons no doubt, by the vast majority of people.

So I think in a given, specific year, a name can be perceived to be too 'posh' for them to use.