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?

Jesus wept. Really?!

@longwayoff

For god's sake...and for the umpteenth time... I am not Katie Hopkins.

Now do you want to say anything insightful about the thread's actual topic?

@boatyIII

Yes, I'm well aware that it did.

CBGB in New York closed over a decade ago, and its heyday was long before then. yet if I wanted to make an allusion or reference to punk or new wave, it might be my first pic.

I think you perfectly well knew what I meant when I used it as an example to illustrate my point, so maybe less of the point scoring?

@Zoflorabore

"And gin... everyone knows that gin is a women's drink".

You're lobbing that "insult" at me, while typing on a website called "Mumsnet" and actively promulgating gender stereotypes?

Jesus wept indeed.

Most parents want names that don't actively close doors for their DCs- unfortunately some people do make all sorts of judgements based on names, such as class and ethnicity.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34636464

I agree. That's why my children are called Taiga, Jove and Lychee. It sets us apart from those awful social climbers.

"Insightful"? No, I don't want to say anything insightful about your post and, if I were to do so, you assuredly wouldn't want to hear it. How can it be that you've been mistaken for Ms Hopkins for the "umpteenth time"? Use your own insight on that one.

Firstly, Annabelle, Isabelle, Harry and Amelia are all very normal names and I wouldn't see those as 'aspirational' unless you think that working class people should only be called John, Jack and Sarah...but yes, otherwise people are giving their kids the en vogue posher names, probably because it does make everyone sound a bit more gentile.

I don't see an issue with wanting to give your children the best opportunity in life. I don't think we should all stay glumly in our lanes

Smh

This guy. Seriously, this guy. Professional sneerer, woman hater and provocateur. Whenever I see you on a thread I know it's heading for the toilet.

Assuming for a minute you're serious:

Stop trying to pretend your original post was "neutral". It was mocking and judgemental, not observational. To continue to protest on this one is so disingenuous it makes you look ridiculous, especially with the faux-analytical tone you adopt - like a priest watching porn behind the pulpit.

Secondly, from how you've presented your "argument" and yourself you are working class/from a straitened background, and have entered traditionally middle/upper class institutions (Oxbridge, finance) via academic success leading to opportunities (I'm thinking grammar school?) You think this is the "honourable" route into the comfortable middle classes and have contempt both for those born into it (didn't earn it) and those "borrowing" the class markers without having achieved the economic and professional status to be "entitled" to it. You probably also prefer to retain a few "working class" social markers (car, sporting preferences, types of eating/drinking venue - never anything billed as "craft" or "gastro pub") to convince yourself you haven't changed and are faithful to yourself and authentic.

All of which is fine except that the desperate status insecurity you clearly suffer from is causing you to kick down as well as up, not just at the landed monied but at people who will never have your status trying in some harmless way to ape it (by your own estimation).

In all seriousness, you clearly express disatisfaction with how this conversation has gone. But you clearly came with a fully formed opinion and a working theory in mind which brooks no denial. So did you just want everyone to stroke their chins and say "hmm, yes, very interesting, good point GinDaddy, please tell us why you think certain people behave in this mildly risible way"? If so, Reddit may be more the place for it.

@Beaniebeemer
See up thread. My Rupert lives in a council house with me and Dh who have underpaid and manual jobs

Why am I not surprised this was posted by you.

Names are aspirational. Read Freakenomics.

It’s all very Mr Cholmondley-Warner isn’t it?
Poor people, know your place!

I've nothing against people bettering their circumstances and achieving.
I've everything against rampant snobbery and clique-building
You do realise you’re the person that is propagating this snobbery?

I live in New Zealand, where we aren't nearly as class obsessed and all those names are very popular here also. Names tend to go in cycles, and those are the ones which are popular at the moment - and they are all older names which our grandparents might have had.

Why are people denying this happens? Class and class markers have been studied extensively.

Calm down, no one's having a go at you for wanting better for your children, I didn't call mine Sharon and Gary either.

My 2 day old DS has what you'd probably consider an "aspirational" name OP. We're neither MC or aspirational i chose it when i was little as i liked it and always wanted a son with that name but even if I'd named him something you'd consider WC he'd go just as far in life

@disinterestedparty

But the OP is. Read the OP. It's not a social or economic analysis, it's mocking, catty stereotyping. Which he clearly this is some sort of Stewart Lee-esque edgy humour.

I agree with @VeniceQueen2004

Can the name parents choose help / hinder their child in life? Yes or no.

If no then so what does it matter the names other people choose. Why start a thread.

If you accept that it can matter then why mock people who choose names they think will help because they fail some arbitrary tests you’ve set that mean you think they’re somehow ‘cheating’ to use those names.

Wow OP is getting it unfairly in the neck. It's amusing to watch posters tear down @GinDaddy; using the same nastiness they are accusing him/her of…it's unreal this thread!

1. Calling OP snide/goady/judgemental/woman-hater
2. Claiming the thread has "failed"
3. Nitpicking bits of the OP (Waitrose, Project Managers) to ask wide-eyed disingenuous questions
4. Extrapolating personal experiences to a wider societal trend and claiming "Pfft! I named my child Harry/Chloe so you are talking bunkum."
5. Making personal attacks about OP's style of writing/turn of phrase

Jesus isn't weeping; He is sitting quietly in the corner agog at the batshittery on this thread.

OP if I were you I would walk away; for your own sanity.

@amrapaali

Check out the OP's posting history and you'll see woman hating is no stretch at all. See particularly his views on women's right to not have sex with their partners if they don't want to.

I consider a lot of those names to be very ordinary. My DC has one of those names you mentioned. Me and his Dad chose it because we liked it

Fair enough @venicequeen OP may be a twat of the highest order. But what is the point of highlighting their misogyny on THIS thread? It doesn't jave any relevance.

Dredging up posting history in most cases is nasty, bullying and can descend into personal attacks. Either talk about the original premise of THIS thread or hide it if it riles you up. (You as in many posters, not You specifically)

If the OP posts and genuinely has an interest in opinion, reason and other people’s views that would be fine. OP posts with a sense of “this is it, all other opinions are invalid and butthurt” which inevitably gets posters backs up.

It’s entirely possible to disagree with OP, but OP believes that in doing so the disagree-ers must be wincing at his insightful takedown of their mundane WC lives as opposed to wincing at his self-congratulatory tone. There’s a difference between the two. OP might want to learn that.

@FudgeBrownie2019

Wow, that's a big leap.

OP here has no issue with genuine refutations where I'm being shown where my thinking is wrong.

OP doesn't take kindly to people doling out verbal abuse or giving a good kicking, so perhaps comes back with a thought of his own.

If you're of the school of thought that Mumsnet has to be the stocks and we must sit here and take all forms of abuse because it's AIBU, then sorry for shattering your entertainment value here

@VeniceQueen2004 I don't always come to mn for in depth analysis. Just because we're not digging deep doesn't mean it's not true.

If we weren't all here for the sniping, wouldn't we just hide the threads that wind us up?