Which names are would you consider 'too posh/try-hard/odd' to be used?

I don't think 'old lady/man' names are trying to be trendy, a lot of them are classic names which parents hope will be timeless/ageless. They will age better than all the misspelt made up names that's for sure.

I bet when all those kids were being named Susan, Stephen, James, Sarah etc in the 60s and 70s the previous generation though that was weird/trendy/naff too.

I asked myself two questions when naming my children. Would it sound ok as a name of a king/queen? Not that I have pretentions to royalty but it may be some indication as to daftness. Secondly, can I shout it across a playground without feeling stupid?

I liked Amber and Ursula for DD1. Ursula means 'she bear' which I thought was sweet.

Antigone's out, then?

Any old lady/man names

Trying to be oh so trendy and failing

me too re Reuben - i know a few and they're both normal and working class, one scottish. think it's quite a standard name.

I never saw Reuben like that. I saw it as a solid classless bible name. Not posh not common, not too obscurely bible-ish...

I think Pontus is a swedish name: there's one in Wallander.

My ds is Guy and my uncle told me I was 'getting above myself' and should have called him Robert [his name]!

I know it's really quite common now but Reuben is what I think of as a try-to-hard-and-want-to-be-middle-class name. Just my opinion though before everyone jumps in!

Santa?? Are you kidding me?

Lol. When I was expecting DD we thought she was a boy and called her Ghenghis (affectionately). After the scan showed she was a girl we thought Venus Electra had a nice ring. Later in the pregnancy we liked Anaïs for a while.

When it came down to it though, we called her....Eva [no guts to carry through unusual name emoticon]

A kid at my school was called Pontus and I rememberthinking even then it was really a bit cruel. His surname was awful too (ended in -cock) and I just felt his parents could have tried a bit harder (or possibly less hard)...

My name is on two of the lists; 'I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book website everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.'

I think long first names & surnames together are a no-no, if we had a double barrell surname our kids would end up being called Kay & John.
I did go to school with (white English, no connection to the countries of name origin) brother & sister called Achilles & Columbia, I think using Greek/Latin/Dutch/Etc names when you have no connection to the country where the name originated is a bit odd.

boobiecat yep imo you can give your kid the 'oddest' name in the world as you have a bugaboo

redhead same here, there is no way in hells chance we are spending over 200 on a pram but you can get a decent pram new or second hand for that price ..

From the Moondial? I loved that show/book. I fell in love with that name then, but I'm not overly keen on "Minty".

Virginia and Tarquin produced much laughter by DH....I quite liked Ginny and well I never got as far as working out a shorter version of the other

Araminta was another name I heard from a kids tv prog when I was a child I always liked but didn't dare voice (Minty for short seems kinda cute) DH might have divorced me

I like the name Ralph pronounced Rafe! Might have something to do with the enormous crush I had in school on a floppy haired arty sixth former with that name though...

I'm with insomnia on greythornes list... in fact some of those names are down on our own list for our first kid. the girl's ones especially sound quite normal to me apart from Blue (weird) and Georgia (posh)

I would consider any of those names in Greythorne's list entirely normal and quite nice popular names apart from the last three boys ones. Blue I haven't heard though.

My cat is called Mungo. I also used to have a cat called Oscar, though I think it's an entirely excellent name for a boy as well.

The other problem with Cassius ( and Julius, Septimus, Columbus etc)

You also have the same problem with 'normal' names like James and Angus...

'basically, babies will be adults one day. unless you are some sort of high flyer middle class bugaboo pushing sophie toy chewing mummy your kid needs a normal bloody name'.

Why though? Who says? Why does everyone have to have a 'normal' name? (whatever 'normal' might be) - and really, how dull would that be?

We wanted a name that wasn't going to be overly popular. We didn't want a situation where there were a number of children in the same class with the same name and for them to be differentiated by the initial of their surnames. Besides, we're not talking made-up or anything, just names that have existed for decades, some even centuries, which aren't overly popular (where we live, or on the ONS lists). If I'd liked 'John' I would have chosen that (turns out most of my family are named John or some derivative).

jesus i thought everyone on here had a bugaboo! i've been trying to find ANYONE who just wants a bog standard second hand pram to talk to for months now!!

but i am quite middle class.

But much worse than posh, try hard names are the trendy try hard, often shortened names:

Archie
Stan
Arthur
Art
Fred
Freddie
Alfie
Oscar
Rocky
Elvis
Earl

Lottie
Tilly
Georgia
Blue
Rosie
Libby
Molly
Milly

basically, babies will be adults one day. unless you are some sort of high flyer middle class bugaboo pushing sophie toy chewing mummy your kid needs a normal bloody name.

woo! that means im allowed to call my children whatever i like! I knew that pram would come in handy....lol

only one of my dd's names is mentioned, I am sure the other would be classed as too posh as well.