are Brits "boring "with their name choice?

[ManiaTas19]

Brit here but have been living in Australia (Tasmania) for just over a year with DP so have developed an interest in name choices.

An Aussie friend of mine, who also lived in the UK for 4 years recently said "In the UK unless a name can be found in a Jane Austen novel it's considered bogan." (Aussie slag for redneck/chav etc.)

And it actually got me thinking- in many ways she's not wrong. Here in Aus I meet people with all kids of unique names who are in no way "chavvy" or "bogan". For example a few people I work with-

Shirleah
Domique
Mackenzie
Brynn (girl)
Shae
Danika
Brittany
Chelsea
Taylor (girl)
Terleah
Sharni
Kelani
Amalie
Ashlynn
Fletcher
Cooper
Troy
Chase
Harrison
Brock
Tyrone
Emerson

(these are all GPs/Doctors- not that it SHOULD matter but I know the way some people think!)

So it got me wondering- why is it that as Brits we are more traditional with names and judgemental of names that stray beyond the "ordinary"? I'd assume it's because we are a much older country compared to Australia/the US so have more of a "tradition" when it comes to names?

Interesting question. I think you're right but it's also a lot to do with our awful class system. It seems that nearly everything is associated with class this country - e.g. where you live, where you go on holiday, the food you eat, your accent, the names you give your children (and about a million other things!). There are plenty of people who use non-traditional names here in the UK but they're often seen as being low class/chavvy. People are very judgemental I think.

Australia is a MASSIVE country compared to the UK so I think it's inevitable that there would be a greater variety of names.

Well there are about 20 million people living in Australia and over 60 million living in UK. You think there'd be more variety here.

I don’t like any of those names so I guess your friend is right about me. I always go for boring, traditional names that I think will age well. Noah/Alfie etc are the Gary’s of the future in my opinion.

I don’t think Brits are boring with name choices as such. There are different tribes of namers. The people who favour traditional names moves tend to stick to the ‘classics’ with maybe a slow shift from Edward to Arthur. But there are also a lot of people who like to ,be more current and are attracted to the new. Maybe a decade ago they called their son Milo and now they’ve moved on to Ezra.

But yeah, this being the UK class permeates every bloody thing. A lot of people on these boards are mega conscious (even if they don’t admit it) of what their child’s name says about their socio-economic status. So that definitely tempers things.

And yes, you’re right, ‘newer’ countries like America and Australia don’t seem as bound to tradition. An American boy called Mason could come from any walk of life. Whereas mention Mason on MN and you get not so subtle warnings about chavs and ‘naughty boys’.

Australia is a working class country . Everyone is striving to be seen as an ordinary bloke and there is a great deal of inverted snobbery. The country was settled by poor British people . The accent is almost indistinguishable from a North Essex accent. Australians generally loath the class system where as Class permeates everything in the U.K.

It's just the culture that people are immersed in. There are regional variations in the U.K. too. People are exposed to slightly different influences and meet people with different names and it perpetuates.

I remember thinking that about J'amie or however it was spelt on Summer Heights High

An observation would be that many of those names are family names/surnames. Perhaps they are more traditional than at first glance. There are also many, many, "traditional" names which are rare, but in US and apparently Aus, many "new" names just seem to be made up, or, are based on traditional names but misspelt. I have to fess up, and say that it really annoys me, quite irrationally, when names are misspelt just to make them different. Hell for the children. I have an usual name, and have spent my entire life spelling it out, and asserting that yes, it is not hypenated... believe me, it is not fun.

I’ve lived in Oz , and the culture and infrastructure is much more American than British. I’ve not lived in the states, but I’d associate some of those names with America.

unusual

ghost Australia may be massive in terms of geographical size but given that most of the country is uninhabitable I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your map. A very quick Google tells me the population of the UK is 66 million versus Australia's 24 million.

OP, I would agree that Australia is far more up for yooneek spellings etc than we are. But I do draw the the at (for example, and this is a real example) Summah. That just sounds incredibly gormless.

but also, someone I met down under (an Aussie) did make the point that Aussies are quite literal, so you know that little creature you see skipping across the mud? We call that a mudskipper. So I can see why they'd be keen to dump spellings that don't make any sense phonetically.

I think we often are quite boring.

Like the threads on here: should I go for Harry or George?

Well you know love, they're both the name equivalent of magnolia walls, so just pick one and they can be the millionth Harry/George born this year

Some Brits seem to be obsessed with "can you imagine that name as prime minister" or "they will not be taken seriously" when in reality, unless it is a very "unique" spelling no one one really gives a shit if their co worker is named daisy mae/rae on her birth certificate.

I’ve seen a lot of comments on here saying that children with slightly unusual names will be ‘bullied’ at school, whereas I think it’s the parents themselves that are judging rather than their young children. We should be teaching our children not to judge others, rather than advising everyone to call their kids George and Olivia.

I'm Australian and I would consider all of those names bogan, with the exception of Fletcher, Cooper, Harrison and Emerson.

The difference here is that being bogan is not necessarily a bad thing in the way that being a chav is. Shows like Kath and Kim, Upper Middle Bogan, Bogan Pride etc. have all cemented a certain affection for the bogan from Australians.

It also depends on where you live, doesn't it? They may be very standard in the part of Tasmania where you live, but those names wouldn't be standard even among the "working class" living somewhere like the North Shore of Sydney.

Mn is quite boring with name choices that are 'approved' as it were but as a teacher I see a huge variety of names. They are not all traditional or chav. In fact I have taught quite a few from that list of Australian names. So I disagree.

The top ten names in Australia in 2017 were:

1. Oliver
2. William
3. Jack
4. Noah
5. James
6. Thomas
7. Ethan
8. Lucas
9. Jackson / Jaxon / Jaxson

10. Lachlan

1. Charlotte
2. Olivia
3. Mia
4. Ava
5. Amelia
6. Isla
7. Sophia / Sofia
8. Chloe
9. Grace

10. Emily

I’d say that with the possible exception of Jackson / Jaxon / Jaxson they’re all fairly traditional, conservative choices. They’re not THAT different to the 2017 top tens for England and Wales:

1. Oliver
2. Harry
3. George
4. Jack
5. Jacob
6. Noah
7. Charlie
8. Muhammad
9. Thomas

10. Oscar

1.Olivia

1. Amelia
2. Emily
3. Isla
4. Ava
5. Isabella
6. Lily
7. Jessica
8. Ella

10. Mia

On an unrelated point - what is the point of the ‘Jaxson’ spelling? It makes no phonetic sense.

I'm putting it down to the Australian accent making most things sounds better/cooler. I don't like many of those names but when I imagine them being said in an Australian accent, they just sound better.