Posh girl names that haven’t filtered through

[Davespecifico]

Just wondering why some names stay within a milieu and others spread.
These are the sorts of names I’m thinking of:
Marina
Cosima
Petra
Cressida
Why do certain names stay within posh circles?

@PaddingtonsHat abbreviation of Victoria as far as I'm concerned, no idea if it has any other meaning.

I think children were called "Marina" for the same reason they were called Brooklyn, or Paris, or Florence, or Hearthrug.

Marina

Marina will always be Last of the Summer Wine for me!

We have a Cressida at work - she’s known as Sid and is far from posh.

@Benjispruce2

Ottilie

There is an Ottilee (however you spell it)!9' CBeebies and she seems rather posh. She's like 5.

Most Marinas I know or have heard of have a foreign background, usually Italian, Russian or Greek. There was a princess Marina once who I think had a Greek connection and there’s Boris Johnson’s ex-wife who is probably just English. I don’t think Marina is a posh name and definitely not ‘wannabe’ posh. I think it’s quite old-fashioned and down to earth.

Also, the poshest person I ever met was called Alexis (obviously pre-Schiitt's creek!)

Some Australian input:

As a wealth-adjacent kid growing up in a boho posh part of Sydney, my playmates included Ursula, Amberwren, Ophelia, Cleo, Kimberley, Melissa, Amanda and lots of Catherines. The boys tended to have short, plain names such as Greg, Mark and Michael.

Now I live in Melbourne and am still wealth-adjacent in a boho posh/medical specialist posh/bankster area. Kids around here are called Millie, Molly, Maddy, Mia, Maya, Audrey, Abigail, Isobel and Florence. DD's school has heaps of Sophies and Siennas. Boys are overwhelmingly Hugh and Hugo, Lachlan and Angus, plus a few oddities; my little neighbour is Atticus. I also know a Weibo, named after the Chinese word for the internet

Australia likes to call itself a classless society. It's not, of course, and names are just one way in which the classes distinguish themselves.

Fenella
The only Fenella I can think of is the witch from Chorlton and the Wheelies

@IAmBeatrixKiddo

Also, the poshest person I ever met was called Alexis (obviously pre-Schiitt's creek!)

But post Dynasty?

@RedMarauder

None of the names mentioned are posh.

Thanks to British colonialism there is a wide spectrum of girls and women with those names from former British colonies.

In fact the upper middle-class people I am related to and know have very boring names.

Love the way this implies that there is no upper middle class across the whole of the rest of the world.

Happy to assure you that other countries - even former British colonies have class systems of their own that pre-date uninvited invasion ...

@PaddingtonsHat

Tiggy. Is that a nickname (for what?) or an actual name?

The Royal Nanny was called Tiggy, nothing to do with real name.

Tiggy as in Mrs Tiggywinkle.

The poshest person I know (aristocracy) named his son Banjo.

@groovergirl you mean Char-donay-rae is not on the rich list or Shelia.🤣

A Private girls school for my cousin featured Alana, Annalise, Francessca, Georgina or Mary.

You can’t pre judge. The poshest man I have met recently (elderly cut glass accent large mansion old family heirlooms type) was called Gary.

Jolly hockey sticks type nick name as a name is a posh indicator particularly ending on an “s” screams boarding school

Tiggy
Posy
Habs
Mags etc

Tigs, not Tiggy

Tigs would be extremely posh and would certainly have attended an all girls boarding school. My posh friend roll call of school pals was all Tigs, Migs, Hels etc us comprehensive girls were rather 🙄

Well no, because that was Shep

I've checked, and I stand corrected Judas

(Petra was Peter Purves' dog - much more acceptable.

I should, of course have remembered the immortal phrase "Get DOWN, Shep!"

Mea maxima culpa.

Dd is at an all girls boarding school. Her friends are Legs, Panda, Boo, Muffin and Sharks.

Like a racing stable.

Shocked to have not seen Philippa on here, we are most definitely not posh and get lots of looks about our dd being called Philippa 😂

But they are often names that are adopted and given to unposed people aren't posh or upper class but believe they are ( or their mothers do). Like Hyacinth Bucket ?

I used Togo to school with a Mercedes and a Tuesday. They were actually quite posh!

Sorry typing whilst drinking tea. Didn't make sense!

@groovergirl my well known girls school in the late 90s had a surfeit of normal names: Emma, Sarah, Amanda, Melanie, Hayley, Kate/ie, Amy, Rebecca, Lauren. We had 7 Emmas out of c. 120 girls. If anything, there were more non-trad spellings - Jorja, Loren, Alannah, Aimee, Jaimee etc.

There were a few “posh English” names - Perdita, Drusilla, Joelle but nothing like the diversity today. My schoolfriend’s daughters are now called Poppy, Charlotte, Olivia, Lucy, Amelia, Ivy amongst others. No unique spelling these days though.

Petra and Marina are names that I'd associate with people from other parts of Europe (mainly German and Eastern Europaean respectively), rather than a particular social class. I would associate Cressida with someone middle-class rather than poor, but not super-posh. And the only Cosima I can think of was Cosima Wagner. I suppose names which would seem quite posh to me would include Arabella, Araminta, Allegra, Belinda (though I've known a non-posh Belinda), Clarissa.