To think this class-obsessed country uses DC's names to change theirs?

[GinDaddy]

I live in the South of England, I'm heading towards middle age, so this gives you some context before my OP, which is..

AIBU to think people are giving their DCs "posh" or "aspirational" names as status signifiers? (Which ironically immediately marks them out to me as such?)

I realise there's always been fashionable and unfashionable names since time immemorial. But what I'm talking about is the slew of names which I would previously only expect to hear on Made In Chelsea or Guy Pelly's guest list at Boujis.

Arabella. Annabelle. Isabelle. Amelia. Jasper. Oscar. Oliver (to be inevitably commuted immediately to Ollie in faux-braying tones). Hugo. Theo. Leo. Harry (not even bothering to use the proper Harold, just going straight to the diminutive because well, it sounds right).

It's just a bit odd really. People can and will call their child what they like, but why are so many folk (and it's always the same folk, the ones who are project managers, who love myWaitrose and head tilting, whose teeth chatter when grandparents offer DC a Kinder Surprise) enamoured with these names?

Can someone actually explain this to me? No one has ownership of names, but I cannot believe that some people aren't using this as some sort of social signifier. 15 years ago not everyone was called Ollie or Theo. I didn't know a load of Arabellas or Amelias, I knew a few but that was commensurate with the environment.

AIBU to think the popularity of these names comes from their associate social status?

There's a gulf between what LMC aspirational parents perceive as being posh names, and then the names that UMC parents call their children.

I’m not Katie Hopkins and never will be.

You’ve written that as if there is a possibility that others who are not Katie Hopkins might one day become her!

OP, even if you are right, what would be wrong with choosing upwardly mobile names? Lord knows people are pilloried for the opposite.

Everyone has the right to name their child Jasper.

You said in the op AIBU to think the popularity of these names comes from their associate social status?

So you are saying that people who don’t belong in that social class are choosing names that they think will push their child up the ladder? So to not do that they should chose name from within their on social class.

I don't really get your OP though.

The names you've mentioned are pretty normal middle class names.

The type of person you mentioned (project manager, drives an Audi, shops at Waitrose) is a pretty normal middle class person.

So it's not aspirational but entirely in keeping with their class...

Is Harold popular at all now? I associate it with men in their 70s

No, it was very popular around 1900 but definitely out of fashion by 1950!

@CecilyP

Others who claim not to be Katie Hopkins may subsequently be revealed as such.

There is no such danger with this OP!

@LaurieMarlow

"Everyone has the right to name their child Jasper".

Indeed! I'm not stopping anyone.

I am allowed to question the prevalence of it though?

Theres a chapter in, i think, freakanomics about name choices and status and how the move 'down' over a decade or so. It was quite intersting.

Haha what?

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned

Yep, you live up to your name's billing.

I spent some time studying burial records from the 1850s for people who were too poor to be buried in their local churchyard. All the names you've listed in the op feature. Unfortunately it didn't specify whether the parents were aspirational (given that one family lost 4 children and their mother in one bad winter I'm guessing it wasn't a top priority for them).

The names are not posh or aspirational, they're safe - the sort of names that no one would comment on either way. This may also be due to the fact that the parents want to honour other family members or had very fashionable names themselves which have dated badly.

I agree OP.

Probably fits - I read a lot of Agatha Christie as a child

Au contraire op. You think your op makes you the clever one, a tiny bit better than those who choose those names. You think you’re omniscient, giving the mob the swerve and carving out your own individual way in life. Get real, nothing is original.

Classic means names that are always around and don't particularly date, and that don't give much away about the person's social or educational background.

Names like Gary and Tracey give a strong indication of age. James and Susan don't. James is a name that could be working class or a peer.

It amazes me how the high court judge gets mentioned on all threads like this one. High court judges get there on merit, and their names are not necessarily white british upper or middle class names. Few people become high court judges.

Huh? I've tried to make sense of the thread but what's it all about?

You have gin in your name! All about the double standards

@Greenpop21

I don't think any of those things, but again, enjoy projecting.

Only on Mumsnet can people tell me how I'm thinking, but if I dared do the same, I'd be accused of misogyny.

Theres a chapter in, i think, freakanomics about name choices and status and how the move 'down' over a decade or so. It was quite intersting.

And then they can also move up again. I read someone who in the 1940s told her mother she was calling her baby Sarah. Her horrified mother said, ‘but you can’t; that’s a servant’s name!

But you are right lots of posh people’s names when I was a child are universal now.

@StealthPolarBear

Um, you've lost me here?

I disagree. Susan is dated which is a shame as it's a lovely name. Susan is about ten years older than me, born in the late sixties.

What’s wrong with project managers? You are a massive snob OP.

You're laughing at someone else for nonsensical posts while having 'stoned' in their name.

I agree about 'gin' in the OPs name.

Hilarious actually