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.

I judge ,if someone calls their child Albert / Edna or one of the oh so trendy old man/lady MC names I think they are up their own arses.

But do you judge the child doesnt ?

Because that is is the ridiculous part. When people judge children because they are named Albert or Enid or Tashaneeee.

Making assumptions about why parents chose names is different.
Although I think people can also apply their own prejudices to why they think parents chose names. I think this is a more equal opps form of prejudice as it covers all classes.

Just as calling a name chavvy says I know I'm better than them

Same thing really

I used to work in HR, and one of thethings we were trained in was stereotypes and how to avoid letting them have unfair effects.

Because it's been demonstrated over and over again that people do make massive assumptions based on first impressions (and if not a face to fae meeting, your name is a key part of that first impression). Those who believe they don't make such assumptions were shown to be invariably wrong, and because their bias was 'hidden' even from themselves it was a form that was unusually hard to counteract.

So I think threads like this are actually quite helpful. It reminds us all about this phenomenon, and without fail someone will remind us that name label isn't a reflection of character.

I am glad to hear that was part of your training edith.

This really is a bugbear of mine. There is a thread atm about silly spellings and although I know people are having a laugh it strikes a horrid note with me.

Its like poking the chavs with a stick.

The fact my DS is adopted does have a huge influence on me but I am always very open about that. My other DCs have slightly unusual/rocknroll type names but they were chosen because I like them, not for any other reason.

There WILL be Chelseees and Alfieees in responsible positions in 20 years time.

Iris is a lovely name, as is Florence. If you had told people you were thinking of that for a girl's name 15 years ago people would have said 'you cant call her THAT!'

But now they are popular.

I don't think I'd judge a name as been middle class or working class (and would certainly never use the word chav) mainly because names swing between the classes fairly regularly. When DD was born I almost named her Lily, which at the time seemed a very middle class name to me. Now it is a name I hear frequently among working class people.

I do, however, make certain assumptions about some children based on their name, if it is a name I hear often and have experience of children with that name behaving a certain way. For example, I love and adore the name William, but every William I have ever met has been cheeky and a bit naughty. When meeting a William for the first time now, I do generally think they are going to be a bit of a handful. I haven't been proved wrong yet!

Come to think of it, didn't that happen with most of the 'flower' names? When I was younger Daisy, Poopy, Lily etc were all seen as quite 'posh' names. Now they are very popular among the working class.

*Poppy, obviously. I don't think Poopy will ever be a popular name!

I have a very odd name, and it was a pain in the arse in the 80s. Point is, that the perception of a name lasts for a second, the personality of a person has a bigger effect.

I think it's rather narrow minded to judge a name tbh, the child isn't reflective of that directly.

That said I saw a name on facebook the other day that I now adore though - I think it belonged to another MN'ers DC!

Damn, aimed for italics and got bold instead - that'll teach me not to look properly at the instructions!

We know a good handful of Poppys. Also Daisys and Lily's. Our dc are teenagers now. On our list for for the dc we had:

ds: Henry, Hector, Hugo, Edward, Louis, Ebeneezer (!), Frederick

dd: Imogen, Alice, Isabel, Louisa, Daisy, Verity, Madeline

Think I know what that says about us! In dd's class at school there were at one point 3 Imogens, 3 Alices, a Daisy, an Isabel and a Madeline! It was a state school!

muminthecity: Poopy is a "real" name, at least to the extent that it exists on Internet baby naming sites.

Oh, and I have a very unusual and very posh name and I have attended an interview where the interviewer actually said "I knew you would be posh when I saw your name"! It is an adult name - I hated it as a child but have grown into it. It is slightly off piste and although I conform to stereotype I am also slightly individual and have never run with the herd.

I'm a former teacher so it was terribly difficult picking names for my DC which didn't have unfortunate associations.

DD has a name that I have never encountered although there was a difficult child with the same pronunciation but different spelling. DS has a fairly common name but I've taught / known so many of them that I don't care. He is my "J" and that's that.

XH's sister named her child, "Gabrille" which would be okay-ish but she thinks that is how "Gabrielle" is spelt. Yeah I judge that

I'm sorry to say that people do judge on names. My name is Tracy (I use my middle name most of the time) and I have had stick about my name for as long as I can remember. I remember a delightful back-handed compliment from a friend who said that her mum and dad were surprised by how nice I was, you know, being called Tracy.

I use my middle name because people do assume that I'm thick or incompetent due to my real first name. I remember at a workplace when I was about 25 or so, a mixed group were joking about the names Tracy and Sharon - that made me VERY glad that I had chosen to go by my middle name.

In my experience (I grew up in a working-class environment) the most prejudice I got about my name was from the middle classes (well, the kids who lived in nicer areas and whose parents had nice cars). In my adult life, I've seen the very same thing.

Le Queen - my namesake is the Katherine Hepburn character in The Philadelphia Story (Dad said that it was because of the red hair :-))

LeQueen now usually I agree with you but all the girls I knew who were called Tracey in the 1960s/70's were not the posh ones. When I was at school it was all: Susan, Sally, Helen, Tracey, Debbie, Jane, and a smidgeon of Elizabeth, Margaret, Julie, Beverly and Denise.

When my mum was at school it was all: Sylvia, Shirley, Jean, Joan, Joyce, Irene, Lillian, Patricia

My gran and her sister's generation all seemed to be: Alice, Grace, Iris, Martha, Edith, Mabel, Rose, Ethel, Ivy.

I know that my Great Grandma was called Nellie (short for Eleanor) and her middle name was Helen and there were sisters called Bella (Isabel) and Renie (Marina).

It goes in generations and what goes round comes round and a lot depends on how you say it. Compare, for example, Paaat in Estenders and Patricia Hodge.

Katherine is utterly lovely.

Is a DD Sophie by any chance LeQ?

I think Sally is very MC.

Birds of a Feather has a lot to answer for in the Sharon and Tracy assumptions.

As a teacher, I would say that while you can't judge individual children from their name, there are usually differences which make it possible to tell a top set register from a bottom set register.