To ask which names sound snobby in the English language?

[ConfusedWife1234]

I am just interested because I found the Chevy names thread interesting.

I have a friend called Annastasia, who is part Russian part Eastern German. She has been told her name sound snobby and wannabe in the US/UK, while in Russia it is very common and in what was Eastern Germany it is not to uncommon.

I don't think Rafferty is posh though.

Has no one thought of poor Ptolemy?

I suspect as with anything else these things change over time. Most of the names of my great aunts are coming back into popularity. I suspect posh upper class isn't quite so fashion led, but there'll be a steady leakage whereby names which were originally posh become normal in their reincarnation.

Life How is that even pronounced?

I knew an Anastasia and she pronounced it awna-sta-see-ah.... I always though it was ana-stay-zee-ah

That’s the Russian pronounciation of the name; no need for a face

Life How is that even pronounced?

Toll-a-mee

How else would you pronounce "Helen" and "Charlotte", Tokyo?

How else would you pronounce "Helen" and "Charlotte"

I must admit, I thought the same thing!

Debretts peerage has a wealth (pun intended) of posh names through the ages.

I often wonder if I'll have GC called Beryl, Mavis, Malcolm and Eric. Names seem very cyclical.

How else would you pronounce "Helen"

Errr... Hell-ayne? I know of a Hell-ayne-a (Helena).

Anastasia sounds IMO a lot prettier pronounced the Greek way - AnastasEEa.

AnastAYsia always makes me think of one of the ugly sister in the Disney Cinderella.
Likewise Lydia, which I've never liked - incidentally used to know a posh one - but the Greek Lydia is LydEEa. Much prettier IMO.

Toby; Olivia, Araminta, Persephone, Daphne, Tabitha, Rupert, Tarquin, Benedict.

Errr... Hell-ayne? I know of a Hell-ayne-a (Helena)

That's a different name though? I know two Hell-ayne-a's.

I haven't heard of a Hell-ayne without the -a on the end, but I guess it might exist!

It's all about perceptions and perceptions can be so different. Someone mentioned Jocasta above as very Irish - I've never ever heard of it in Ireland - and someone else suggested Jonty as posh, whereas for me it conjure up a Belfast loyalist thug with H-A-T-E tattooed across his knuckles.

And as an Irish person, I do perceive Reginald to be terribly English and posh but apparently my perceptions are quite wrong there too!

I think names like St John are a real class indicator though - the complete divorce between spelling and pronunciation seems to point to it as an insider-only code. Someone else mentioned another similar B name earlier on this thread - I can't recall it but v grateful if someone could tell me how it is to be pronounced.

I haven't read all of the posts but Anastasia sounds very different to my 75 year old mother than how it sounds to me. I see it through a glamorous lens but she lumps it in with Dolores, Bernadette, Josephine. I think it is one of those names that sisters in religious orders adopted, so she knew a Sister Anastasia. Which is a way to take the pizaz out of a name.

Is Jocasta perceived to be Irish? I've never met one in 40 plus years.

God. Posh and snobby are not the same bloody thing at all. And neither phrase is used at all by anyone "u" anyway.

I am what you lot are calling posh. Went to a posh school. Posh friends. All are called

Laura
Joanne
Catherine
Lucy
Annabel
Tiffany
Amanda
Caroline
Elizabeth
Helen
Felicity
Samantha
Arabella
Sarah
Victoria

Etc.

The boys we knew were called

Edward
Alexander
James
CHRISTOPHER
Nicholas
Stephen
Robert
Mark
Julian
Henry
Ben

This was in the 80s/90s.

BUT... it was all about the nicknames.

I always think plain names like Sarah and Emma for women sound more upper class. I imagine Lady Emma or Lady Sarah rather than something long and classical.

For men i think nicknames like Pongo and Bunny.

I have just realised this opinion is entirely based on Jeeves and Wooster!

Cuthbert

I used to work with a Fabian, not posh at all even though his name was

Lol at the St John "what, he's called sturgeon? Like the fish?" quote above, brilliant 🤣

I've always thought of names like Araminta, Tarquin and Jolyon as being very much posho names. Persephone probably is too, but I love it. There was a Persephone, nickname Percy, on our school bus incidentally and it was a distinctly unposh state school, so they aren't all posh.

I also once knew a Scheherazade. That's clearly an exceptionally posh name. I think her parents were diplomats. She was however entirely lovely and unpretentious and generally referred to by the much less posh nickname of Sheri.