Name classism doesn’t exist in 2026

[Kyttiol]

Name classism gets mentioned a lot on here but I don’t think there’s such thing in the big 2026 with the internet anyone can google and name their kid whatever they want. My eldest I had at 16 while living in a homeless shelter has a so called posh name and my youngest I had as a grown woman in her twenties married to a man with a middle class job has a name that’s been called chavvy on here.
Hugo is also apparently the epitome of posh but I know a literal crackhead named her son Hugo (he was taken away at birth though)

People always quote freakonomics which was written in 2005 before mass internet use and certainly before the internet was used to discuss baby names! Surely that’s outdated

Snobbery (and reverse snobbery) does exust in real life too.

But like the whole idea that certain baby names are “posh” or “chavvy” is outdated?

It absolutely exists and from my work i notice a clear divide in w/c name trends compared to m/c, and if there's a difference you can guarantee there's discrimination.

Do you work with kids or are you talking about adult colleagues? I should of made my post clearer probably but I mean little babies born or children born in the last few years.

My work involves children, mainly w/c

I’d say there’s still very obvious differences. I would also question how truly “posh”, to use your term, the name choices are or if they’re just perceived to be by certain people.

I absolutely think certain names are chavvy or posh!!

I don't think this will ever be outdated in our culture.

It still exists. Anyone with a “Jayden” is feral.

And so is anyone with a “Mason”

Trends may change, but people will always have implicit bias towards anything they perceive as unusual.

There is a much much broader spectrum of names used nowadays and way less judgement/teasing - mumsnet hasn’t caught up to that, it’s true. But… there are still some names that have certain connotations, for people that care about that. Name classism does still exist I’m afraid!

It totally exists, I'm really surprised you think otherwise

No middle or upper class person is calling their children Chardonnay, Kai, Kalen, Kourtney or other K names

There was a thread about the showgirl names just yesterday or the day before

These views remain.

Saying ‘ mumsnet’ hasn’t caught up to that is absurd. There are huge amounts of
different people that post here, of different ages from different places.

I can’t help feeling children who are given highly unusual names carry a burden.

Your logic seems deeply odd to me — why would being able to google mean that the social class connotations of names somehow cease to exist? You gave your child, born in a shelter when you were only a child yourself, an aspirational name. Your daughter married a man with ‘a middle-class job’, but his parents named him, not his job. It’s perfectly possibly to be working class and have a job in a field that’s traditionally dominated by middle-class people. DH and I both do.

Explain why you think the internet makes a difference?

If anything I'd say it's more pronounced than ever.

I named my first born child a “posh” name while I was 16 living in a homeless shelter and I named my last born a “chav” name while being an adult woman married to a man with a middle class job. They’re both my kids

I mean chav and posh as in they’ve been described on here as such but they are still ordinary names not ptomely or Chardonnay

I do think a lot of people will google names and see how they’re perceived and then not choose them based on that. Which obviously you couldn’t do that twenty years ago. “Chantelle” for example sounds quite pretty but googling it would quickly put you off. I have never met a Chantelle who’d be under the age of 20 now.

I think you’re naive if you think people don’t judge others on their names, or even that it won’t be the case by the time the current young children are adults. And I think most of the time, the judgement is class based.

Yes, but you’re just repeating yourself.

Is what you’re saying that if you’d been able to Google aged sixteen, you wouldn’t have given your first child a ‘posh’ name, or, when older, your second a name with lower-class connotations?

You’re saying that you’d have googled ‘Is Hugo a posh name?’ and discarded it if the internet said yes?

It’s completely irrelevant whether or not you were later married to a man with a middle-class job — you are still just an older version of the same person who gave birth at 16 in a homeless shelter. Although presumably your DH had some input into the name?

What is googling names to see how they are perceived? Surely that's not a thing people do is it?

What I’m saying is names aren’t the class signifiers people think they are. Me and dh both agreed on names we liked together our two middle children have super normal top fifty names and our youngest has a name that is occasionally described as chavvy on here but isn’t crazy like named after alcohol or a car. Then my eldest has a different dad and I unknowingly gave him a name that’s described as posh but again it’s not crazy like Persephone or Hubert. I like all my children’s names and wouldn’t change them though.

Im just saying my child with the “posh” name was born to a 16 year old in a shitty place and my child with the “chav” name was born in a normal house with a dad with a middle class job. So the names wouldn’t tell you anything

Then I also just don’t think super chavvy or posh names are as popular as they used to be because who’s going to Google Chardonnay read a thread about how shit it is and then name their child it. Has anyone met a Chardonnay under the age of 20?

Generally speaking, yes, assumptions will be made based on a child’s name.

The odd outlying case you have given doesn’t negate the overriding issue. It’s like claiming cigarettes aren’t bad for you because your Nan lived to 100 smoking sixty a day.

You think classism is outdated? Have you been living under a rock? It is rife in every area of life and baby naming is no different.