Outgrowing names

[Happydoingitjusttheonce]

In dentist waiting room yesterday and dental nurse calls "Alfie". A near 6ft 16 year old with a tracksuit and key wig rises from his seat. He probably made a cute Alfie when he was a toddler. Do kids outgrow cutesy names?

"Festivals, it's a methodology based on experience. I don't claim it's fool proof. And how can you possibly state I'm not getting the best candidates?"

Haha, that made me laugh. You are a funny one OP. If you call your bigoted meddling "methodology" you are sadly not terribly bright nor educated to a reasonable standard even if your name is Catherine, Laura, Evelyn or whatever.

Are you Katie Hopkins?

Ketwig?
Fuck me
Do people really talk like that?

Couldn't agree with you less Francis Crawford. One of my closest friends fits the Chardonnay-Blue bill in terms of name and the parental background that this thread has ascribed to our Chardonnay. I socialise with her, holiday with her, confide in her, I do all the things with her that friends do and I love her. I've known her all my life. But there's no way on god's green earth I'd employ her.

My youngest it called Alan. So there.

Scheisse. 'is' not 'it'.

Francis, there is a logic to it. Please bear in mind I've known my friend and her family for 40 years. She's not particularly academic and would struggle. Her parents took her on holiday every year in term time, sometimes missing exams (no fines then). They quite openly evaded taxes. They told her not to worry about exams because she could work in a shop or be a hairdresser (their words, not mine). I don't look down on her for her upbringing but I wouldn't employ her. Her parents didn't equip her as best they could for working life. These are facts.

Francis

The logic is that middle class children have a tendency to have different names to working class children. There is undoubtably a demographic trend.

We know that one if the best predictors of an educated child is to look at their mother - are they educated?

So a name often denotes background - which is itself a predictor of academic achievement.

Headof, you are far more articulate than I on this point

Not just classism, but probably racism too.

Catch up on earlier posts mairead.

Re changing names: it is not necessary to be known by a different name to get the change done by deed poll. So Alice can call herself Bonny tomorrow. She tells people that is her choice and that is really enough. She would need a deed poll change to get her passport updated. The only thing you can't do is try to defraud anyone by using that name , so I can't be Queen Elizabeth for example.And the passport office won't agree to 'silly' or 'fun' names on passports. I've met many people ( including family members) who have been known by a totally different name to the ones on their birth cert.some have been 'pet' childhood names which have just carried on.

FrancisCrawford
Yes! I totally agree re Beau. I teach French and definitely judge people who name a girl Beau. It is a masculine adjective. If you want to use a foreign word as a name at least check what it means. I don't think it is used as a name in France though, so the French might find it quite odd, just as a girl named Handsome here would get some odd looks.

Bonbon you've demonstrated a much earlier point I raised over Beau. The mother in question was puzzled and upset as to why people assumed her girl was a boy as she believed beau meant beautiful. By her own admission she rarely turned up for school, let along French class. Is she going to encourage her daughter to pursue an academic career? Possibly but unlikely because it wasn't important to her. It is profiling, but I'm running a business, not a mentoring scheme. My business does though support an excellent one.

It's a generalisation Francis. Not always accurate of course

My name's Poppy which was greeted all cutesy as a child. I'm 26 now and have spent my adult life being asked if it's my "real name" or "what's that a nickname for?"

The likelihood is that the only people who are bothered by other people's name are the ones moaning about them.

I have a bit of a confession with this. One of my dds friends offered to show me a photo of her Timmy - my first thought was why does she have a picture of a sheep on her phone.......

It wasn't it was a lad but as he turned out he is a bit of a drip
Oopsy!

It does have basis in fact Francis but you have no experience of it I presume hence your view.

There are definitely names that you'd not want your son's or daughter's partners to have. It is almost impossible not to stereotype and make assumptions based on names.
Alfie on a young man, however, is fine. Molly, Teddy, Jemima, Arty, Charlie, Rosie and Kitty are all fine too.