Are 5 syllable baby names pretentious?

[hendaw]

Ones that I am considering

Cassiopeia
Anastasia
Alexandria
Theodosia

I'm unsure whether this is a joke post 😂
But then, this is mumsnetland 😂

Can’t imagine a Cassiopeia at a normal school. I do kind of like it though!

No, that’s the correct pronunciation. I know a few, and they’re pronounced like that. It’s Russian. The short form is often Nastya.

I like Alexandria and Anastasia, not keen on the other two.

It depends on the name . I
think Anastasia is fine the others on your list sound contrived to be longer
Why Alexandria and not Alexandra?
Why Theodosia and not Theodora
And Cassiopeia sounds pretentious

My favorite is Onomatopoeias

How?

We thought DD2 was going to be a boy and wanted Maximilianus.

All very Hapsburg.

@TheBrunswick ,It depends on whether you say the -ia as -y-a or as ya.
Fot example, I say Olivia as Oh-LIV-ya not as Oh-LIV-y-a, so they're only3 syllables to me..

I love a long name! I don’t think they are pretentious, I think they give something more meaningful than a short nickname-type name.

I know a Christiania who always uses her name in full.

I do like your choices. You may also like,
Emiliana
Evangelina
Mariangela

What does pretentious mean?

Pretending to be what?

@Helenbelena , pretending to be something you are not.

I did know an Alexandria and people did comment that her parents were pretentious.

I think it completely depends, for example if it's a name from a culture like my husband's where full names are at least four syllables then no, I don't think so at all. I absolutely love the names Aurelia, Octavia, Seraphina, Xiomara (okay last one not as a first name) so you can see I've got quite flowery taste anyway. But five syllables up they're inevitably going to be shortened, and if they're very much a name from ancient Greek mythology that's not really used as a given name at all these days, then I can see that reading as pretentious.

Why is a long name pretentious.

we have two of those names in my family. Niece goes by both short version and long. Her choice for school (long) and her parents shorten it sometimes.

adult uses short informally and long for work documents (I think )

not a big deal. Don’t see it as pretentious

not my choices but there are far worse names. Eg anything hyphenated or middle name Mae/Rae etc !

Yeah we know. But most people say don’t say Anastasia like that.

Same! Sounds like a computer virus. Others ok but favourite is Anastasia

You wanted boys is what I’d assume from those names

Not at all, Leopoldina was named after a Nancy Mitford character and Maximiliana (via Maximilianus) was after a friend.

I wasn't bothered whether I had a boy or a girl, children are blessings.

I remember how my geography teacher used to make a 3-syllable name as we pronounced it into 5 syllables - Gee-Or-gee-ann-a.

She had an acute professional sensitivity around eliding gee-

And what is that ‘something’ that you’re supposedly pretending to be?

Can you not simply love long names?

How do you know? The argument when I was at school was whether to pronounce it Ann-uh-STAY-see-uh or Ann-uh-STAH-see-uh. No one pronounced it with a “sha” at the end - I wonder if that’s an Americanism, like pronouncing Marcia as MAR-shuh.

Anyway, I think we need a Greek to settle this.

All Ananstasias I know (quite a few Ukrainian) pronounce it as Ah na stay see ah.

The only one that I like (from your list) is Alexandria. The rest seem a bit over the top. Anastasia, in particular, feels very pretentious. I would have a hard time remembering Cassiopeia and Theodosia.

I'd like to add that the only Anastasia that I know pronounces her name as ah-nah-stah-see-uh.