Which names are would you consider 'too posh/try-hard/odd' to be used?

[AKMD]

Having seen a few names pop up which, when read out to my office colleagues, have caused great hilarity, I was wondering which names poeple on MN generally consider too posh/try hard/odd to be passed off in RL. I absolutely love Arabella but have been told that DH and I aren't posh enough to use it :( Ditto Lucinda.

I have to admit I did laugh at Mungo. Sorry to any Mungos/parents of Mungos out there!

Rather posh names in my (or rather my parents') circle of acquaintances, the criterion for making it onto the list being titled parents:

Alastair
George
Basil
Edmund
Paul
James
William
Clive
Hugh

Antonia (Toni)
Eleanor (Len)
Frances
Catherine (Kitty)
Bryony
Claire
Gail
Linnet (I kid you not)
Patricia
Harriet (Hattie)
Virginia (Gin)
Ruth

I think I'd use most of those without thinking they were particularly aspirational, although some of them are not to my taste (Clive, Virginia) but then I meet the aforementioned criterion for being posh so my perception may be a tad skewed. I think a lot of it is to do with being posh enough to carry it off. Interestingly none of the boys have nicknames...

I love Linnet, there was a little girl called that in a book, maybe a Noel Streatfeild.

I know two Gabriels. One is the son of a vicar, the other of a wild artist.

My son is called Tom, which must have been in the top 10 for about 900 years. It is my absolute favourite boys' name and we are now expecting Tom's little brother. Shall I call him Tom Too?

^I say Monty, goes so well with Tom, and a fab name too

Well it's better than Noodles which is the favourite with DD. Monty does remind me a bit too much of Withnail and I - uncle Monty and his friend Norman getting up to sensitive crimes in a punt at Oxford...

Horatio is too posh for me to use.

Friend of mine used to vow he'd name a son Horatio

Horation Nelson in fact

I lost touch unfortunately

My ex middle name was horatio!

alasdair

almost anything is alright for a middle name though, isn't it?

Oh dear. One of DS's middle names is Horatio

You are obviously posher than me, fraktious!

do you also want to know Lynette what his other middle names are?! That is definitely a bit on the posh side frak. Horatio has something. Definitely has something that Horace does not IMO

I do have a tree called Horace though, if that counts for anything. Despite my efforts (yes I admit to not wanting it), it refuses to die. There are a pair of them - Horace and Benjamin - very resilient

Yes, I need to know the other names!

I could use Horatio as a middle name, but not as a first name. It would be shortened to Horace, obviously, and we just couldn't carry that off.

(Although I have a good friend who has a DS called Oswald. Maybe they could play together?)

I would out myself in a moment if I told you the others!

It's after Nelson. Family Naval connection and deliberately chosen to complement DH's nationality, not intentionally posh/try hard.

do it! do it! do it! Horatio has style.

Horace is very difficult to carry off, really very difficult. Someone will be on in a flash to tell us in fact their son carries the name off beautifully, thank you very much I realise this

Oswald. I find it so hard to judge that name on its own merits because I've just recently watched the Oswald Mosley film with his twattish wife Diana Mitford etc and I cannot separate atm the name from the blackshirt character.

My first pet, a goldfish, was named "Horatio" by my father - who used to like calling me or my sister "Arabella Higginbottom" fairly randomly too !
Hope he's not reading this, outing me and de-coding all my other contributions

• Like cracking the enigma code

My family (firmly middle class) has some great names - both my mum and MIL are Dorothy's although everyone knows my MIL as Dollar - I'm an Isabella from a time when it was really rare. My brother is Alaric, but everyone calls him Bil. My children are Beau and Kitty. And I have a brand new baby cousin called Wilfred. So anything goes really - I think you just grow into your name and if people are going to take the mickey, they'll do it regardless of what your name is.

Alaric is cool, is it a-LAR-ic or AL-aric?

It's the first I believe (at least that's how they say it on Vampire Diaries, which is the only place I've ever heard it said out loud )

I know of an Alaric, pronounced AL-ar-ic.

I am really surprised at some peoples' narrow minded views. Surely the whole point of naming someone/something is to identify him/her. So choosing a name already used by thousands others won't really achieve this without having to add a modifier (or initial etc). Secondly, the name should sound nice together with the surname as well as work well in several languages (well, in our case given dh and my backgrounds).

We actually tried VERY hard to find suitable names for our children - it was not easy .

So why on earth would you NOT 'try hard' or not choose a name outside of the top 100 or even 250? Kids are pretty accepting of (most) names, but it seems a lot of adults (or mumsnetters) are very narrow minded, and I hope they don't pass their views on to their children.

Personally I'd much rather meet a little Monty, Cassius, Quentin, Lucinda or Felicity than yet another Charlie, Alfie, Jack or Ellie.... (yawn).

i tried very hard as well, but the names are quite ordinary. Ordinary but not used very often if that makes sense. So I tried very hard to come up with names that have an ordinary vibe.

But what is wrong with un-ordinary? As long as the name is not 'silly' or teaseworthy why does it need to be 'ordinary'?