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?

DP's family do and they are Derbyshire working class. DP doesn't and mostly shed his accent and mannerisms whe he went to uni. Our family are Westcountry and it's unheard of down here regardless of class.

Yes I call my brother and children "our" , I'm originally from Manchester now living in Bolton where I'm called mam when my husband is talking to my stepdaughter about me .
My brother and I refer to our mum as "mi mum ".

My extended family did this. Working class Southampton.

My mom does this. But it is either to separate people with same names (her brother and my dad have the same name) or it is somewhat sarcastic/suprising. Like if my nephew does something unexpected she would say "you'll never guess what our James did"

Yes. My Mum's family has always done this - they're Liverpudlian, but my Dad's family, from Lancashire, never did it.
But I wonder if it's class related in that case as Mum's family was more working class...

What about Me Julie? 😁

No, were in the south and noone does this, I just assumed it was a northern thing. I like it though :)

From West Yorkshire, working class and my family all say it but a lot of other friends’ from similar backgrounds didn’t. Some guys would also say ‘Our lass’ if talking about their partner.

Definitely used in my working class Bristol area family, but it is becoming less used down the generations I think. 'Our Ma' often used for 'my mum'. Makes me laugh 😃

I've only ever heard Cilla Black say it.

My parents both do, raised in NW - I don't tend to but I don't know many people my age that do!

Have you never heard of Oor Wullie? 😀

@MajorCarolDanvers @SaltAndVinegarRiceCake

Yes. I’m from Liverpool. Everyone does it

No but my mum was born in Harrogate and her aunt and my great gran used to, my nana doesn't strangely but she moved away fairly young and lived in different parts of the world.

Well I hope the parents who named their child Sole don't say "aw, here's ar Sole"

Cornwall - no never

@Theemperorsnewshoes wrong. My question is about its derivation - not whether you use it or like it or find it common.

Yes I do know that I can swear on here but I choose not to

I use it and I think it's lovely, a lovely way to signify being a family. I'm from Newcastle and very working class upbringing.

To be fair, your thread title is “ Do you use…?”
To answer your question, it was widely used by many families around me when I was growing up in a central Scottish family in the 1980s but my parents, who were a bit posh (my Dad was a radio newsreader!) would not have used it. My experience is that it tended to be used most in big families who were all called things like Jimmy and Davy. My Mum’s Mum, who was one of 7, prefaced mention of all her brothers with “Oor..”

Yorkshire, and yes, I say Our.
Our kid is just any brother, not necessarily the youngest and our lass can be a sister, or a girlfriend depending on context.
I only call my brother Arkid in a sort of jokey way though, it was more my dads generation who did that. His brother was always Arkid.

@HotCrossBunplease

Have you never heard of Oor Wullie? 😀

I'm also confused by all the Scottish people saying they don't use "our/oor"

I think if you're responding to the thread from Scotland you need to say where you're from. West coast of Scotland, catholic, working class- definitely say "oor Joe" "oor Mary" "your Michael". Talking about another family you might say "their Susan".

I think the catholic background might be key here as Irish people say it too and it will originate from multiple "Michaels" and "Marys". Similar to "Big Joe" and "Wee Joe"

Our lovely neighbours do, midlands, in their 80’s, wealthy working class.

That makes sense but my Granny who used it was Protestant and I can think of loads of kids I was at school with who used it, also all Protestant (town had a separate Catholic school). They tended to be from the local mining towns though, so definitely a working class thing.

We’re in Wigan and both me and dh say it. We also say “your” when talking about the wider family too so for example I’ll say to dh “have you asked your Bob” (not real name) meaning his brother.

I’m a southerner and wouldn’t say this unless I was talking to someone with a close relative with the same name as the relative I’m mentioning, and then it would be ‘my’ or ‘your’ e.g. “My Jack’s really shot up”, almost as tall as your Jack”, to differentiate. I don’t think I’d ever say “our Jack”, unless I was pretending I was in ‘Happy Valley’.

My Dad and my other Scottish relatives (Protestant, working class, West coast) would definitely have said ‘oor’, before a family member’s name. I never heard my Mum (Black country) do this, but in stories about her childhood, she would recount others saying ‘ower’ (family member).