Do you use "our" in front of close family names?

[mabelandmaud]

I call my close family members "Our Tom" or "Our Julie" etc. All my family do this. I'm from the north West Midlands - near Stoke on Trent and have a Northern Irish parent. I'm just wondering where this comes from, is it a regional thing, or a class thing, or a colloquial thing?

This is Interesting. So it could be a N Irish thing and or a North western thing? I also say my or me mum /dad/ aunt etc. I'm from a working class background educated to post grad level

Yes it's nice when you know the person that you are referring to. In work clients will tell me about "our Julie" as if I know who this is, and what relationship they are to them.

I think it’s regional. You don’t hear it “down south”

My mum used to say it but usually only when speaking about her younger sister. I'm in the South West and it is commonly used here. It is a working class thing. I mean, imagine Camilla saying "our Charles".

Definitely regional. You’d never hear someone born and bred my neck of the woods (Home Counties) say it.

No. Cumbria born and bred

Parent did - I don't.
Northern England

Very much in use on Merseyside

I think it stems from a time when back to back housing existed and there was a high concentration of people in these areas. There wasn't the variety of names we had now, they were either virtues, plant/flower or biblical. More people had the same first name. Hence the need for 'our Mary' or 'your Thomas'.

I don't hear "our Julie" in NI, but I do hear "your Julie".

Never. (From Dublin originally).

My family (working class, South yorkshire) so it. I dont (brought up in East anglia.

My grandparents always did. Working class Lancashire.

My Auntie does this when referring to my cousins. No one else in the family does. She is the youngest by a long way so I don't know if it's maybe a generational thing.
North West (well Cheshire so it's borderline)

No. Home counties.

Yes when I was younger, in my family. But not dhs's! Both of us South Wales.

Yes. Scotland.

I don't (Yorkshire), but I like it. It's friendly and intimate.

Yes, midlands.

I'm from West Yorkshire and this is something I've never done. But I've known plenty of people that do. Saying 'our lass' or 'wor lass' when referring to one's other half is very common oop north.

No never. (East midlands)

I use it when talking to another person who has a family member of the same name - so I might say ‘our Peter…’ to distinguish my son from their son. In Yorkshire

My family are Humberside, notts area and do this. I've been south for 40 years and I don't.

Yes for example I often use our John, also use your Margaret etc.
What I don't understand is using My, especially for their DH, for example I said to my Billy, or I will ask my Peter to call over.

North here too.

I grew up in Lancashire and never heard this. I studied in Liverpool and heard it a lot there, not heard it anywhere else since (Yorkshire or Lincolnshire)