What are the upper classes calling their boys nowadays?

[seeingdots]

So apparently naming trends in the UK often follow a step behind the upper classes. This may or may not be true, I don't know, but if so what does that mean for the next crop of popular names that will replace Jack, Oliver etc at the top of the lists? I don't know many 'upper class' people but those I do have only really used classic names like George and William.

Do you think there's truth in that idea and if so what's due a surge in popularity over the next decade?

Disclaimer: I'm expecting a boy but just posting for fun/interest. I'm neither desperate to make my little one sound posh nor to be on the leading edge of a new trend!

No, just going to university doesn't make you upper class. But coming from a long line of people who did, and went in to traditional professions tends to make you middle/upper middle. So, context.

It's just demographics.

University doesn't make you upper class, it makes you middle class.
Names are an indication of class whether you like it or not.
The Royalty is not upper class, it's Royalty.

The birth announcements are hilarious. I didn't know people did that (I'm not in the UK).

Sadly I only know one uber posh, landed gentry type. His sons are Alexander and Jamie

Julius? My dd was very bemused to hear this name on a recent trip to a tourist attraction in London. She also said his parents "spoke like the Royal family" - she gets all her info on that accent from The Crown.

Marmaduke - are there actual people called that? I've only known ginger cats go by that name!

But yeah, it seems it's the classic names that I'd consider timeless and fairly 'trend proof' (if that makes sense) anyway that keep coming up.

I suppose social class is a very subjective category but for me upper class would mean shorthand for aristocracy/landed gentry type families.

I really don't get mumsnetters obsession with class. I really don't think its particularly relevant in 2019..

Exactly!

OP, you could try

Jacob
Rees

or Mogg.

HTH.

LOL

First that spring to mind for boys

Orlando
Digby
Otto

Can’t really think of any typical girls names?

Names are an indication of class whether you like it or not.

But if most 'upper class' people use common names like James and Thomas, then they're not really indicative of class.

I know boys called Sebastian and Hugo (so called posh names) that are the opposite of 'upper class'...?!

I'm not upper class, but I do seem to have friends with a definite leaning towards certain types of names. Recent boys ones are:
Ptolemy
Paris
Hector
Arlo

Girls:
Constance
Arabella
Persephone

Although, none are remotely made up - all either have Ancient Greek or English/Celtic origins.

have friends with a definite leaning towards certain types of names.

But that doesn't make the parents upper class nor does it make the names upper class...?!

I really like Hector, Constance and Arabella but that doesn't make me upper class

Otto
Otis
Arthur
Bertram
Hector
Henry
Frederick
Wilfred
Edward
Hugo
Theodore
Rafe
Orlando
Wilbur

Me neither *sunflower but 2 of the names are my DC names and the other you mentioned is a cousin!
Not upper class at all but both families have very long histories locally, sadly the money has long since gone, on my side anyway!!

Of course it’s relevant - I look forward to the day it isn’t

In reply to a previous poster, i know a couple of adult Digbys and they are both lovely - one a very traditional old gent and the other in his early 30s and very much landed gentry. So not just for dogs! I do know a lot of dogs called Winston and Pearl, randomly

Yes the point is not whether names 'make' you a certain class (of course they don't, but that doesn't mean some names don't carry class connotations for many). Rather the question is, given that there's a set of people (landed gentry IMO) who can be categorised as 'upper class', and like others these people reproduce, what baby names are popular in this narrow section of society?

I suspect the theory alluded to in my OP is bullshit if it's classic and arguably classless names that are most popular!

That's kind of the point Sunflower. The confidently posh use bog standard names, and those that aren't try to posh themselves up by going for more 'unusual' names.

those that aren't try to posh themselves up by going for more 'unusual' names.

I don't think that at all. I think most parents (me included) choose unusual names because they like them. Perhaps they've hated having a very popular name, perhaps they just like less popular names?

And some choose names because they make them sound posh. 🤷

I like Digby and Marmaduke and Allegra was on our girls’ names list. Should I leave now?

Boys’ names:
Anything ending in o-
Jago, Sholto, Cosmo, Hugo

Girls’ names:
Vaguely out there names with classical roots -
Pandora, Calypso, Artemis

I love Allegra, Pandora, Constance, they're beautiful interesting names!

But I'm not 'posh' and certainly not trying to 'poshen up'

Surely Kate Middleton marrying Prince William, Meghan Markle marrying Prince Harry and Sophie Rhys Jones marrying Prince Edward threw a lot of the class thing out the window in Britain ?

I think that names like Sebastian and Arabella are now aspirational names for the working class.

Surely Kate Middleton marrying Prince William, Meghan Markle marrying Prince Harry and Sophie Rhys Jones marrying Prince Edward threw a lot of the class thing out the window in Britain

Aren't they all very middle/upper middle class though?

None of them lived in a council house and went to the local comprehensive did they?. They have all benefited from a pretty exclusive education which enabled them to form networks and blend in the required circles to meet their future royal husbands.

When you're poor and struggling to afford a shop in Lidls, you know class is a very real thing and very aspirational for your children if not yourself, even whilst believing the concept is ethically shite. I find its very upper and MC people who go about denying class exists in a casual air of dismissal.

Aspiring for your children to cross classes you might decide on a name that fits in and facilitates access so to speak. Imagine if Sophie or Kate had been called Chardonnay or Chantal? Even Meghan received tuts over the less traditional spelling of her name.

These Telegraph birth announcements are hilarious...I can’t work out if this one is era or not?

“
On 11th January 2019 to Katsiaryna (nee Kavalevich) and James, a daughter, Alexandra Eirene, sister to Minnie & Falafel, Labna & Bimbi and Othello & Ambrym.”

Falafel?? Laban? Bimbi?
I think I’ve seen it all now!