What makes a name (in your opinion) pretentious and why ?

yep.

roxy - how did you feel about the pressure? i'd be v interested to know... as i had a pretty common name myself. so don't know what it's like from the other side.

The silly thing with that hf though is, surely everyone tries hard with their childrens names. To get the right/best one.

What people mean by that expression, IMO, is "trying to be something they're not" names.

Has everyone heard the expression 'try hard names?'

Stannie won't you tell us the names?

I am called Roxanne and did feel a small amount of pressure to be lively, amusing and sexy, given the assumptions of the name.

I definitely wouldn't have felt like this if I'd been called Sarah, Kate or Gemma (the most common names of my age group, born 1983).

I'm definitely giving my daughter a more unusual name, no one wants to be ordinary do they?

Stannie you should use the names that you like.

I knew that with ours (which are not difficult, just not English) we would get people thinking we were twats. But we like the names and so use them confidently so it doesn;t matter. I don't care what other people think - we chose them genuinely and with no thought of trying to impress other people with our coolness/richness/poshness/originality whatever.

Just go for it

I have a friend with a dd called (say) 'Persephone'.

Her sister had twins and called them (say) 'Ruby and Magnus'. She was horrified and thought they were very odd names indeed.

It's all relative!

fatti that is exactly what we have done. We have got quite a few , as expected, but fuckit, who cares

For me the real pretentious ones are a certain type of person in London who are very pretentious anyway, and their children's names just sort of accentuate the whole ghastliness of it all.

Would persephone get shortened to Percy? I like it though. But wouldn't have the balls to use it myself!

Ooops I think it was me that suggested Persephone on that other name thread

I stand by it though. It was a contender at one point for a while for our imminent dd in fact. I just think it's really pretty, and unusual, and has an interesting background.

IMO giving a child a name which is totally unsuited to their environment/nationality/heritage is pretty pretentious. Eg calling a girl Mercedez if you're not Spanish.

Oh and so yes, a name which no-one has ever heard before can't be pretentious as by definition you're not trying to be anyone else, as no-one is called it IYSWIM...

For me the pretentious names are all the "quirky" ones which are beloved of certain (pretentious) areas in London, and the ones which are thought of as being very posh.

Because people who are being pretentious in an aspirational way will choose names which they hope are unusual or original but then realise they have missed the mark and the primary school is full of kids with the same name.

Or the names will be utterly ridiculous and not "suit" the family at all.

Whereas people who are truely original/bonkers/eccentic can call their children whatever they like and, while people might think their choices weird, will not accuse them of pretension. They just think "oh it's just so and so".

For eg your Apples, you will be able to tell whether the parents called them that due to celebrity endorsement, or because they have dreadlocks and once lived in a ditch with swampy for a month. Totally different ball game.

Not pretentious. Too unusual to be pretentious.

not that were looking for anybody's blessing!

No that's not pretentious. It's a sur name. I liked Brave New World, so I say it's a good one.

huxley

Yes what is it?

What's the name?!

although some people disagree, for me it rings true that parents will hope that their children are confident enough to pull off their name (and they may well be right).

this is making me think twice about going for my unusual name. me and my partner like it, but i don't want to saddle our child with something they will hate. and we've had fairly neutral from other people so far.

lots of issues and questions here but what hulabula asked jumped out for me

"but I really don't understand why some people are so vocal and negative when it comes to names.... Why don't they get to know the person before forming a judgement?"

the point on mumsnet is that we don't know the person or child in question and if people ask an opinion on a name then people give it. In RL a lot of people are very polite and mutter 'mmmn nice' when inside they are screaming 'what on earth are you thinking?' On MN you get honest answers from a broad spectrum of people from all over the UK and even further afield.
If you take offence at the opinions then you shouldn't ask. I love commenting on people's choices but I can't ever imagine posting my list of names here as I don't really care what the MN jury thinks, if DH and I are happy with the name then that's all that matters.
Also a name alone (without knowing the person) conjures up an image in an individuals mind and that is often dependant on where they live, what sort of school they went to, whether they read celebrity magazines and all sorts of other factors.

It's when someone says what their child is called and the general reaction is "oooh get her".