To ask if you make assumptions by name?

[manicinsomniac]

Okay, so in theory, we are all decent, reasonable people who would never assume that the name a family gives a child has any bearing on them as people.

But, in practice, - do we make those assumptions?

A lot of threads in the baby names topic talk about 'chavvy' names, names for people with low IQs, the idea that you can predict a child's future success based on their name etc. It all sounds very nasty and judgmental but it got me thinking as to whether we can avoid doing it and what it could mean for our children if we do.

I have only been a teacher for 5 years and have only taught in two schools - but they were very very different schools and yes, they did have very different 'popular' names. Both schools have lots of Amys, Lucys, Daniels and Sams but at the first school I taught at I had Dillon, Declan, Damon, Chelsea, Kelsey, Kasey and Jamie-Leigh. In the school I now teach at I have Annabelle, Beatrice, Georgina, Harriet, Sebastian, Frederick, Rupert and Henry.

Do you think we have names that are firmly seen as 'chavvy' or 'posh' as well as the huge mass of names that are obviously in the middle? And, if we do, do we run the risk of a child being perceived as 'a poncy twat' if we call him Rupert or 'a scuzzy chav' if we call them Jamie-Leigh. (By the way, those hideous classist terms are in inverted commas for a reason, I would never actually use them!!)

When you named your child did you consider what other people might think of the name or just go for what you liked?
Do you make assumptions about people based on their name choices?

I think that most people do and I suspect that I do myself if I'm very honest. And I think it's a bad and potentially quite damanging tendency. But I'm fully prepared to be told IABU.

It's not just the name itself, it's the context that makes a difference. Some names just don't suit some people. For example, you might think you're safe enough giving your baby a non-class specific name such as Sue

coldwed - I think foreign names are probably judgement free in this country because we don't know enough about the names to allow us to form assumptions. Maybe in the country of the name's origin there is an assumption that belongs with the name though, I don't know.

When I picked my daughter's name I had honestly never heard it used as a girl's name before. My deceased sister's aspie special interest was Chelsea FC, hence the name.

I think that most employers would judge a candidate (who was only represented by a piece of paper, ie a CV) by their name.

For example, a CV submitted under an unusual, not easily pronounceable name, would subsconsciously be considered hard work (even the 20 seconds someone might consider how their name would be pronounced when reading it in their head) when there were hundreds of CVs to go through, and probably not go to the top of the interview pile unless the candidate had outstanding experience and qualifications.

Similarly a politician or a popstar may be judged on how easily say-able, how memorable and likeable their name is. Hence, of course, why so many actors and popstars change their name to something more favourable.

Eg. Would you pay 60 quid to see Reginald Kenneth Dwight live in concert?
Or would you be more inclined to splash out on seeing Elton John?

I would think that many of us would make assumptions based on names, but isn't it more likely that those assumptions are more influenced by having experience of someone with a particular name rather than a class thing as such.
I know I could never be friends with anyone named Angela, or trust anyone with that name as she is my arch-enemy, and class has nothing to do with that, but perhaps IABU .

laprune you're absolutely right, none a better example than the man who named his two sons Loser and Winner. Loser went to University, joined the police force and became a highly decorated senior police officer and his brother Winner went on to live a life of petty crime.

When we names DS1 we gave him a traditional name. Combined with our surname it sounds like trouble. I pointed out to DH he would probably end up in the bottom sets at school. Which he certainly hasn't, but he can be trouble.

He would have been much calmer if we'd called him Hugo.

Also, I recently had to work with a boy called Tyler. A colleague and I thought he would be a little scamp. We were both very, very wrong.

So, yes, people do make assumptions based on a name...going by past experiences of that name.

I believe in France you can only choose a name from a set list. Can anyone living in France tell me whether that's right?

What I hate is the misspelling - that, more than anything, makes me judge the parents (not the child.)

I, too, chose names that could be used if they were rock stars or judges.

Whilst reverse snobbery is irritating as hell it is nowhere near as potentially harmful as the traditional variety.

We're apes. We organise our society in a hierarchical way. We can't help it. And when society is organised in this way, we need to have shorthand indicators to help us navigate it and figure out who's who and where we fit in.

It might offend our liberal sensibilities. And I would certainly prefer to believe that I don't judge books by their covers. But the big picture is that often we rely on 'value judgements' about names, appearance and class as a way of networking our way through a very massive and complex social structure.

For whatever reason, we all need to know our 'place' in the pecking order as it makes us feel secure and gives us a framework within which to operate. So we do this by categorising people as 'above' and 'below'. Or 'in' and 'out'. Or 'other'.

If our communities were smaller, or the hierarchy were less political and less divided by wealth discrepancies, those things might be less of an issue.

So I guess, my theory is that on some level, none of us can help judging a tiny bit.

anthropology face

I think that most of the time the assumptions that are made ARE wrong. But they still persist for some reason.

The children that I was thinking of in my original post are, other than name, impossible to put into a group of common traits. They were (from a teacher's perspective) as follows:
Dillon - very sweet, low academic ability, naughty but nice
Declan - ADHD and learning difficulties. disruptive but likeable
Damon - delightful. Quiet, shy, polite. Struggled academically but tried hard.
Chelsea - wonderful. Bright, friendly, polite, kind - teacher's dream
Kelsey - difficult home background with poor behaviour but a nice child
Kasey - another difficult home life. Very sad little girl, others disliked her
Jamie-Leigh -lovely girl. Very poor attendance record but otherwise great
Annabelle - gorgeous. Not that bright but hardworking and multi talented
Beatrice - very bland. Not very interested in anything. Did the mimimum
Georgina - wonderful. mature, caring, bright, thoughtful, good at everything
Harriet - scatty, lazy, cheerful. Naughty but nice
Sebastian - a toad. Rude, arrogant, disruptive Struggled academically.
Frederick - difficult home background. generally ok, could be silly
Rupert - PFB to the extreme. Whiny and a know it all.
Henry - nice child. very bright but not too senstive to others around him.

No real determining factors for class there at all imo.

true ninky - but I still think it's important not to label people as 'posh' just as it is important not to label others as 'chavs'. Both are unpleasant, not just one.

Declan is actually an old Irish name. There's nothing wrong with it at all.

Dillon, on the other hand, looks as though someone's made up the spelling.

Ooooh OP, I feel like doing a similar list of my own students, now!

Hope nobody recognises your list.

...foreign names are judgement free because we don't know enough about them...
Do you know how patronising that is?
Putting a list of your students names with personal statements about each one is not a good idea.

My girls both have names which suggest either very upper-class bohemians or whacked-out junkie scum.

One of the worst examples of 'name judging' (which, yes, I have been guilty of) was when Prince Albert of Monaco married Charlene. People/newspapers were questioning whether you could have a princess called Charlene and still be taken seriously as a country. Absolutely unbelievable judginess especially when you consider what came out about the respectably named 'Albert'.

I judge 'unusual' name spellings. It's the birth certificate equivalent of shouty T-shirt slogans, home-fitted car body kits and OTT Christmas lights.

I wonder what you think to the name Lianne?

I'm not too bothered what other people actually think but love to see opinions.

Oh I agree Manic, I made the mistake of starting my post earlier (when a poster mentioned it always seems ok on MN to take the mick out of posh people) and then getting distracted by dinner and bedtime...coming back to it without refreshing! So my post now makes no sense whatsoever!

I agree with TG about pet names on birth certificates. I don't like Harry, Alfie, Billy etc. It should be the child's choice to keep a pet name into adulthood.

OP - based on children we know and I'm not a teacher:

Annabelle: Gorgeous, precocious fiersomely intelligent
Georgina: Bland, pleasant and very dim
Sebastian: Fiersomely intelligent, sharp and very sporty and quick witted
Henry: Rather pedestrian and pfb
Rupert: Balanced, sporty now awfully bright but dim either
Frederick (usually known as Freddie): bit of a joker, generally quite rich

Oh, actually all of the ones we know are quite rich. We don't know any of the other names apart from Beatrice and recall that Chelsea was Bill and Hilary Clinton's daughter.

I don't think you can generalise OP. I have once met someone else with my name and she was most peculiar. Our own dc are not on your list. They are respectively: bright, alpha, sociable, sporty and very academic; and bright, sweet, quiet, kind, shy and loving. I know others with the same name who are both adorable and vile in equal measure. Mine have middle of the road names which wouldn't often be found on a council estate - not this generation anyway.

How can your NAME mean you are more likely to end up on the SEN register - that is ridiculous!! (Teaspot)

Ummm.... manic - I assume that list wasn't from the same class, if so that is out of order putting it on here.

...foreign names are judgement free because we don't know enough about them...
Do you know how patronising that is?
Putting a list of your students names with personal statements about each one is not a good idea.

1. Why is it patronising?! - I have no idea whether Indian or Ghanaian names have any class based judgements attached to them in India or Ghana. I don't know the history of Chinese or Swedish names or the popularity of Italian or Mexican names - why would I?

2. They're not my current students and they're not all from the same school or the same classes within the school! I'm not insane!