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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to think house names are pretentious

107 replies

MrHankyTheXmasPoo · 26/02/2016 00:15

Fair enough if no number. In that case there is no choice.

am I the only one who has a chuckle at the likes of Dunroamin,3 ordinary street, etc

OP posts:
GabiSolis · 26/02/2016 13:35

QueenJuggler - yeah I know, but I'm talking about people who know they live on a street but profess otherwise. Through work I've had to speak to speak to people while inputting their addresses from a database (to send letters and make appointments etc - I am NHS based) and they will give me their postcode and house name telling me there is no road name but when I say "oh, that's coming up as 56 Random Street, is that correct?" And they'll reply "oh well, yes, I suppose that's right". It's happened several times in similar formats. So odd.

CatThiefKeith · 26/02/2016 13:39

My df once converted an stable, which originally was the coach house for a very old village in Essex.

The address was The Coach House, xxx village and the postcode it wasn't on a street, it had a 200 yard driveway to get to it. My mum used to absolutely love writing our address down. Grin

Snarkmaiden · 26/02/2016 14:23

I live in a Rose Cottage. It's been Rose Cottage for nearly 200 years. It's got a street number as well, but I don't like using that. 'Eleventy-one Somewhere Street' sounds too mundane IYSWIM. Maybe I'm just being a bit of a pretentious dick, but my house has character and needs a name.

MitzyLeFrouf · 26/02/2016 14:26

A 200 year old Rose Cottage sounds absolutely charming.

SianiMoomin · 26/02/2016 14:39

I gave my new build a name :)

I don't care, it means something to us. Not trying to be pretentious!

expatinscotland · 26/02/2016 14:43

I'd like to live in a house that just came on the market in Surrey. The address is 69 Cock Lane.

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams · 26/02/2016 14:45

I live near a mid terrace house [with a number] called Bedlam.

A stand alone house or a fairly ancient one but not a terrace or one which is identical to those around it. That's naff imo.

Snarkmaiden · 26/02/2016 14:47

expat I want to move to Cockermouth for the same reason Smile

TheNoodlesIncident · 26/02/2016 15:01

Of all the houses I've ever lived in, all bar one have been subsequently referred to by the road/street that they were in.

The exception was given a name when it was built in 1896, on a track through farmland. Later when the town grew around it it was given a number (actually two because its garden took up the width of two of the new houses). It was a very atmospheric and characterful house, so it's quite fitting that it alone is called by its name. All the others have been ordinary and semi-detached or terraced.

Sometimes I look at it on Streetview and pine a little

LilacTiger · 26/02/2016 15:07

I swear the main reason my DP loved this house was because there's 'cock' in the name Grin

We don't live on a street.

We mostly call it 'the f*ing cottage' though as its 3-400ish years old and prone to bits falling off or in. Not sure that would be approved by the post office...

5BlueHydrangea · 26/02/2016 15:09

We thought we might call ours "mañana" - sums us up nicely!! But we haven't as we thought it a bit naff..
Unofficially however..!

Krampus · 26/02/2016 16:15

Most of the houses in the towns and villages I grew up in had house names, as a child I kinda assumed all houses had a name.

I now live in a terrace in a large town, it would look out of place if one of them had a name.

Wineandpopcorn · 26/02/2016 16:40

my house has a name Blush. In my defence we only moved in a few months ago and it was already named, along with several others on the road.

Cuppaand2biscuits · 26/02/2016 16:54

I've lived in 3 houses with names. The first was very old and rural and deserved it's name. The 2nd was named xxxx Lodge but was just a ordinary 4 bedroomed house built in the 70's. I only used the name if I wanted to look posh. My current home was named after the man who built it, although fortunately he used his surname so you'd never guess it was also his name. I never use the name here, only the number.

OurBlanche · 26/02/2016 17:06

I used to love our old address, it had been the same for about 200 years, all the other houses had flower names!

10
The Village
The County
Postcode

Then we moved. For about 400 years our house was
House Name = Village

Like London House, London

About 150 years ago they added a road name:
London House, London Road, London

I really like our house name Smile

BarbaraofSeville · 26/02/2016 17:14

It sounds like some of this thread would like to live in Penistone, or as Marc and Lard off the radio call it, Penis Town Grin

stumblymonkey · 26/02/2016 17:20

Near where I went to school someone built a large-ish house in the style of a Spanish villa and called it.......

Costa Plenty

randomsabreuse · 26/02/2016 17:27

There's a cruise ship I saw in Greece called Costa Fortuna! True but unappealing

SanityClause · 26/02/2016 17:31

Near by us there are a few roads of houses with names but no numbers. It's such a pain when you have to drop DC off at one of them. Why don't they just give them all numbers and be done with it.

Our house had a name when we moved in, which was Plantname Propertytype (eg like Rose Cottage). It is the property type, but there are no plants of the type anywhere to be seen. I'd quite like to change it to one of those Victorian names like Idlewild or Somerton. It also has a number, though, which is increasingly used because of address searching, so it seems a bit pointless, really.

cupcakesarah · 26/02/2016 17:34

My house has always had a name, it took us years to find out that it also had a number that we could use, lots of delivery services needed a number to deliver to, so we have to use the number then

MsRinky · 26/02/2016 17:47

My DH and his siblings all refer to their parental home as Casa Maurita, both as a tribute the memory of Casa Bevron, and because it winds my in-laws up.

Our house has a name as well as a number, it isn't old but it was built for an international housebuilding exhibition in the 80s, and the name reflects what it is. We don't really use the name, but we've left the plaque up.

Pantone363 · 26/02/2016 17:50

I rent a .

Someone else called their (new build) house the same thing Hmm. I had a thread on here about it!

I kept getting their post but they refused to change the name. The house I rent is over 100 years old and an original village house!

mummymeister · 26/02/2016 17:58

our house has a name because we live in the middle of nowhere not on a street with a name or a number either. mr posty knows us well as we get letters with all sorts of combinations on them.

we visit cornwall regularly on our hols. I want to live in a village called Budgies Shop when I retire. or maybe ugley. or have a house over looking the moors called Brown willys view.

Husbanddoestheironing · 26/02/2016 18:08

I think names like Rose cottage sound lovely if it's a 200 year old cottage, but very sad on a 70s semi. My favourite one was near us a few years ago on a bog-standard 80s estate terrace, 'church view'. It did indeed have a view of the church, glimpsed across the access way to a row of tatty garages/ parking spaces but it was a newly-built 1980s church of very unremarkable design. I always assumed it was named ironically, but really don't know if that was the case or not.

OurBlanche · 26/02/2016 18:11

I thought you couldn't do that, Pantone. But as the Royal Mail is being dismantled maybe this is no longer monitored. I know it used to be, many moons ago. How bloody irritating!