to think that all these darling Jocastas are mythical?

[manicinsomniac]

Seriously, does anybody actually know a Jocasta?

I know it's the go-to 'mock the middle classes' earnest yummy mummy name on mn but I'm not convinced they're really around.

It only appears of one of the ONS name lists from 2006-2012 (there were 3 Jocastas born in 2007) which means there have to be fewer than 20 little Jocastas walking around the UK.

Does anybody know where the reference to 'little Jocasta' came from? Did it start from a specific thread? I know of other seriously posh names which actually do get used each year (if not very frequently) eg Araminta, Antigone, Persephone.

Nope, I don't know a Tarquin either.

I know a Tristan but I don't think that's in the same league.

I was quite disappointed, when reading Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes when I was about 8 or 9, to be told that Persephone was not actually pronounced Percy-phone, which I thought was a perfectly acceptable way to say it.

I still think Sea-mouse is a better pronounciation of Seamus, too. (I first came across a written Seamus around the same age, and it took me a while to realise that it was actually the same as the Shaymus I knew in person.)

It's wasted on her anyway Bogey as we just her the stinky monkey.

*call

I once had a thing with a tarquin who was a complete arse but very handsome. He lives in brighton, fwiw, and his sister ran off with her art teacher, honestly.

:o Maybe as she grows she will be less stinky!

I knew a Tristram through work, which I have always felt scored higher than Tristan as it is much hard work to say.

I once went to a lunch where Jocasta Innes was one of the guests.

Jocasta was also the name of one of the characters in the wonderful Guardian cartoons by Posy Simmonds in the 70s/80s.

It was a early 90s thing. There were references to it in AbFab and possibly Bridget Jones (book).

Which would explain those of you saying you know one in their 20s.

I don't know a Tarquin. I do know a Ulysses and a Caesarean.

Caesarean?

Caesarean? Was that how he (she?) was born?

I don't mind posh names, or pretentious names. But if your response to the question "oh, that's an unusual name, where's it from?" is "she was a character from Greek myth who married her son and then committed suicide when she found out while he stabbed his eyes out" then I feel you've made a tactical error.

I agree that it's a name symbolising a certain style of pretentious and questionable name choice, rather than one which is actually seen in the wild.

Caesarion was the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

Not Caesarion MrsK? Still a strange choice, but an actual name at least.

Beautiful names, and for siblings, Saucyjack!

I know a Sephie (Seraphina)

Named after the son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, last ruler of the Ptolemic family (where Ptolemy comes from too). It's actually spelled Caesarion i think.

Its pronounced Sez Are Ree Uhn isnt it, which is slightly different? Although as my father would say "About the difference between a fart and a shite"

It'd be fun to have a Saffron

corus Ex nixed Ophelia on the basis that he said she would always hear "can I have Ophelia tits?!"which I think said more about him than the name.......

I know an Ariadne

Didn't Jocasta Innes have something to do with the very middle class paint shop that was very popular in the early 90s? I can't remember the name of it though. I want to say Farrow and Ball, but I don't think it was.

I think that PPs are right though, that Jocasta comes from The Modern Parents in Viz.

I wonder if the Portia up thread might not be a Porsche.

Sorry LadyIsabella, you are right - it was a spell check error. I actually quite like that response to what does your name mean.

"Oh do shut up Portia" was a quote from A Fish Called Wanda, we used to say it to each other all the time at school when someone was being an arse! It was the name of John Cleese's dd with his pretentious wife.