The cliches abounding in this topic

I just looked on the babynamefinder and looked up Saskia. It just says 'cheeky vibrant little girls'.

Added by somebody called KeithTalent. Am I misssing something? Not the next Miss Marple me obviously.

chav = Council Housed And Violent
taken from gypsy word 'chavi' i believe.

At the risk of being flamed here... people who call a name poncy or posh are surely just as bad as those who call a name/person chavvy/a chav? But people seem to get upset about being labelled chavvy etc whereas it appears to me to be more acceptable to call someone posh (which may well have been used in just as derogatory as way as "chav"). Why is this? It seems to be just as common.

And I also think that different names might seem normal to some people and unusual to others. It just depends on background etc. BTW my daughter's name is definitely what some people would call "posh", "poncey", "very unusual" etc, but others, and most of our friends don't see it as that. Anyway that is sort of irelevant to this discussion, I just wanted to join in!

I really think names are such a personal thing and what is one person's chavvy may be another person's posh etc etc. And I love my duaghter's name (obviously) so I don't much care what others think anyway (we only told family before she was born). But I am rather a fan of the baby names topic as I think it's funny...

I have a

DD1 - boring
DD2 - chav (despite it being an old Hebrew biblical name)
DD3 - bit chavvy but also slang for fanjo also a New Testament village

Wonder what will be made of DSs name

names are very personal that's why I always tell anyone pregnant not to tell anyone their name list as someone will always try and put them off.

If you come onto MN with it's thousands of posters and ask about ANY name you will get positives and negatives, if you think everyone will love your choice you are very much mistaken.

Personally I hate hyphenated names (having one myself), anything spelt different for the sake of it and don't particularly like boys name starting with a K

Good point, Florence. I don't children really care what their friends' names are. We live in London and hear a huge variety of international names.

"Do you think you would survive a state school as a boy called Rudy, Corin, Quentin or Archibald? " (Padraig)

Yes, my 10 year old ds is one of these and is very happy and popular at our local state primary school .

It seems us parents have this desire to 'classify' names according to class. Do you really think school children really care if their class mate is a Cayden, Callum, Corin, Quentin or Christian? Really? I think they (sensibly) care more about the child's personality.

I think Sharpay probably comes under the chavvy category

@ lockets

I wasn't actually making any commentary on the names (Saskia included) themselves, I was just giving my experience of the opposite of what the OP was saying about names being overheard in supermarkets (i.e. names being overheard in quasi-upmarket department stores). The Saskia example was the foremost memory I could think of purely because of the mother's accent (which sounded like something out of a comedy sketch show).

Same with Archie at those who think I was saying it's posh (although it's not what I would call a common name). Although Archibald is most definitely posh, but that's neither here nor there.

As for chaviness, I don't think I've seen any names I would consider chavvy in this particular thread (i.e. zoe is not what I would consider chavvy).

Hope that's cleared things up somewhat

I heard a Nike yesterday, and no I don't think it was the result of a classical education.

MN told me my sons name was 'chavvy'. I imagine if it had been overheard in John Lewis it would be 'poncey' too. In my opinion it is simply 'Welsh'.

some of the most knobby names i've heard are from the middle classes, seriously awful names poor children will definitely change as they get older.

chav pisses me off too, most people don't understand it's meaning, it's offensive but seems to be acceptable by sneering middle class types.

Never seen it.

Oh and while I was in New Look the other day I heard a woman call her daughter Shar Pei. Really.

Archie and Alfie very middle class here - isn't it odd how a name can have completely different connotations depending where you are. Mama - that's exactly what chav means to me.

It's what it means to me too. It's nothing about money or class. Chavs are just not very nice people... Undesirables.

Archie and Alfie are not posh.

Thing is chav on mn means council estate imo ....thats what pisses me off

For what it's worth, that is exactly what it means to me. Doesn't have anything to do with class; more behaviour and taste.

"chav = unpleasant person who speaks badly, wears horrible clothes and is generally unpleasant. Has nothing to do with class"

This is certainly NOT what the word means to most people who use it.