'Trying-too-hard names' - should we really mind about them - or not?

[LadyThompson]

People get a bit narky about names which they see as upwardly mobile or trying-too-hard, I've noticed. Perhaps not everyone who wants to call their kids Edwin or Clarissa or Milo or Artemis (or whatever, not criticising these names, before you flame me) is trying to be determinedly pretentious. Or are they?

I've chosen a slightly poncetastic (but not ridiculous) name for my DD - not that I give a monkey's what anyone thinks, I just happen to love the name. Jane is a nice name imo (for instance) but I don't want to call my DD that or something like it, because I always wanted a more interesting name when I was a kid, and I know what that feels like.

So...what's the consensus?

Message withdrawn

When I think someone is trying too hard, its not that they are trying to have ideas above their station, rather that they are trying to hard to be different, with a weird made-up sounding name or a strange spelling or a word that is not a name.

I don't actually care if people do that. But they are asking for advice, and therefore if I have an opinion I'll give it. Nicely as I can, mostly

Edwin is on my list. I don't have ideas above my station, I have always liked Ed but not keen on Edward. I don't consider it to be "posh" I think it is along the same ilk as Toby or Rory. that the names we give our children are over analysed, I just choose names that I like the sound of.

One person's posh is another person's common.

Like I would think Toby is very posh but Rory is just normal. But other folk think Rory is posh.

So there's no oint in getting wound up about it.

Ds's name has been on the "chav" thread before. You can't win someone will always think the name you choose is:

A Chav
B Poncey or
C Boring.

People need to stop thinking so much!

Well...I don't really like made-y uppy names either, or odd spellings for the sake of it. But if you suggest a name like, say, Arabella or a rarer flower name, you do get shot down in flames on here, even if you just like the way it looks or sounds. ho hum.

I knew a girl called Terilyn, and it was because her parents were called Terry and Lyn...and I felt sorry for all of them really, because she'd got a naff name, which embarrassed her, and her parents really thought they'd created a beautiful one and thought it was beautiful and unique...

I assume people choose names because they like them, not because they aspire to anything.

But what is poncey is so subjective
I don't see how one name can be thought of as poncey by everyone

Most of the very posh people I know have very ordinary first names.

We chose dd's name because we thought it was a sweet name and that it would suit a child and a woman both. Didn't partic. consider anything else.

i agree with pruners, in that some names seem 'limiting' somehow and that seems a bit mean.

but for everything else, who the hell cares? i certainly dont. and even if i find a childs name not to my taste (as in i wouldnt use it myself) it doesnt occur to me for a second to deem it to be crap in some way. i kind of like the way we all have differing tastes

when i was a kid, i wanted to call my kids names like dragonwagon and harley davidson and purple ronnie. luckily (i think now) i didnt have kids young . my kids now have names i would have considered odd then... but i like em. now.

like cd says, its all subjective, innit?

I don't mean that people have ideas 'above their station'. Heavens, not at all. I actually see it as the opposite. Giving 'posh' names is sign of forelock tugging (metaphorically speaking.) Tantamount to saying 'We want to be like them grand folk in t' big 'ouse.'

Bollocs to that.

Unless you do actually live in 'the big house' of course.

i totally agree with the point that on this site in particular it is very, very hard to find a name that is not 'too poncey', 'too chav' or 'too boring'. Having said that if you ask for opinions then that is what you have to expect to get.

IMHO the middle classes/upper middle classes have quite traditional classic names.