Any Aussies out there?

[daisy78]

DH is Australian. We have very different tastes in baby names. He keeps suggesting names that he thinks are unusual, but that are actually pretty popular here in the UK. I have seen some of them described as 'chavvy' on MN.

His argument is that they are unusual in Australia, which is true for some of them. However, he also claims that people don't name class based assumptions based on names over there and there is no such thing as a chav/bogan name. Is he right?

He is wrong to an extent. There are some bogan names. Kevin, Darren etc are quite 'working class' names. What names are on the list?

Yes agree with Lou. Definintely some bogan names. My sister's friends have cornered the market on them.

Deffo loads of bogan names. You will find most of them on people's tickers on essentialbaby.com.au.

I suggested Zoe, which while not vanishingly unusual here, is certainly a lot rarer than your Ruby/Olivia/Grace bunch of names and faintly bohemian. English DH shot it down in flames as chavvy. Equally, Jacinta is a deeply bogan name but I have seen it praised here.

I think there is a fair degree of overlap. Neither in Australia nor the UK do Maddysin's or Jae-dyne's parents sit on the board of the National Ballet.

No such thing as a bogan name in Oz? Is he kidding?

There are the traditional:

Darryl
Kel
Dale
Wayne
Barry
Les
Doug
Ken
Kylie
Sharon
Cheryl
Raelene
Jay den

Then there are the modern versions eg anything named after a brand of car (Mercedes), anything with an extra "ae" or "lee" added to it. Celebrity names are also popular.

Didn't someone post a Chaser link on this recently?

Classic Chaser

Just go watch 'The Castle' for some good Aussie bogan-isims!

Walnut, don't forget Ebony-Ray

(a la Kath and Kim)

I'm not an aussie, but my best friend is so when letting him know some of my name choices he has described them as "bogan" (love that word).

But my two contenders were Lauchlan/Lachlan or Bronwyn/Bronwen.

The first I was surprised to see was very popular in Australia so don't know if you'd class that as bogan or if you and DH thought it unusual enough here.

Now Bronwyn is a welsh name but everytime I suggest it people will say oh thats quite australian! I think it must have been the Neighbours connection but that was years ago but people can't seem to break the connection!

What does DH like?

Or buy a season of Kath and Kim! Classic bogan baby name: Epponnee Rae

oh lyrebird, cross-posted! Love it.

I was going to say "see Kath & Kim for names to avoid" as well - such a brilliant show!

Am not Aussie but am married to one and living in Australia now and there certainly are "chav" names, although DH swears he'd never heard the term bogan before I told him about it, but then he's from NSW, not Melbourne, so maybe that's why (I first heard it on Neighbours, oh the shame!)

Daisy, I think your DH is being a bit disingenuous there - unless he really isn't aware of the class name thing, but it really does exist here. And some of the names I would choose to avoid are the same here as in the UK - have already met a couple of Jordans (boy and girl), Jayden, Kayla... you get the picture (although Epponnee-Rae still wins hands down)

Message withdrawn

Tell DH that 'he's dreamin'!' - Aussies do make name class based assumptions in Australia, whether they think it is a bogan name or think it is 'stuck up'.

What are the names? We'll put him straight!!

Bogan -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA8gJoT5yl4

And in Queensland, "bogans" and "westies" are known as "bevans" (possibly another name you'd want to discount). You can't say that the social class system in Australia is not sophisticated .

ahhh, I didn't realise westie was similar to bogan - DH uses it for "inlanders", i.e. non-coastal people, but I hadn't picked up on that nuance.

Lola Lachlan is very popular over here, mainly because of Lachlan Macquarie - who was a govenor of NSW in 1800s and basically was in charge of turning Australia into a free settlement from a penal colony.

He was from Scotland originally though.

I wouldn't consider it a bogan name at all. I would see it more as a "Jack" or "Thomas" type name - popular but normal, nice middle class name.

I wouldn't consider either Bronwen or Lachlan bogan. They're popular but ordinary. All the Bronwens/Bronwyns I know are in their 30s so it's in the same bracket as things like Karen for me. When I think of bogan names, they tend to be inventions, new names (Mackenzie, Mikynzie or any variant), involve creative spellings (Mikayla makes me shudder) or be overly frilly (eg Jacinta).

You can't throw a rock in a Sydney playground without hitting a Lachlan. It's part of the Jack-Max-Rory set.

We want to hear the names now - I will tell you definitively if they're bogan or not!

Check out 100 years of baby names on the NSW Births Death and Marriages website: here I don't know if vic gov have a similar thing.

Bronwyn peaked in the 60's at 145 born per year. Lachlan has been at the top of the list of popular names since 2000 and still going quite strong - 791 born each year 2000-04. Jack and Joshua very very popular for boys and all forms of Isabelle for girls and Charlotte.

My son who is 6 goes to a very small private school - only 26 kids in his year, but 2xLara and 2xHenry - most 'interesting' name is 'Dior'. DS's best friend is a Max.

HTH

Thanks for your responses! I have shown then to DH, and he is finally beginning to realise that names do carry social implications. He's not normally naive, but he does tend to see things from his eyes only sometimes. As he would never make an assumption based on a person's name, he believes that it just doesn't happen!

He has a thing for Scottish and Irish names (e.g. Connor, Declan, Callum, Liam). No offence meant to anyone with these names, as I think these are ok (much better than some of the names he has come out with!). They aren't really to my taste though and neither of us have Scottish or Irish heritage.

Some of these names have mixed reviews on MN though, and have made some 'naughty' lists. This is how this conversation came about, as when I mentioned the 'naughty' associations, he told me that in Australia these kind of assumptions just don't happen. So for me, it's not so much about the actual names, I just wanted to know if he was right about there being no such thing as a chav/bogan name, as I found this hard to believe.

He does like Lachlan by the way. He thinks it is different. The fact that it is one of the most popular names in Australia won't convince him otherwise. He has never met one, therefore he must be right. He is very hard work sometimes

AussieSim - what a great website, thanks.

Daisy78, of COURSE your DH is always right. He's Australian, it goes with the territory! Mine is just the same.

I've just heard of a little girl called Milan... her brother is called Coen... even DH thinks these names qualify as "chav" (he's spent too long in England).

Note - I mean Aussie males always think they're right, before I get jumped on

No, Aussie women are always right too

I know those names get hit with the chav stick on here, but they're not quite so negatively perceived here.

Lachlan is NOT different. Lachlans are like blowflies - bloody everywhere.

We're having the same problem. Live in Melbourne now, but originally from Glasgow. We are thinking about names for DS2 due in April, we'd like something Scottish but not too popular and not too 'shortbread tin-esque' and which also won't give my family cause to slag it off. Baby Centre has listed the top 20 names for boys and girls for 2009 in the last couple of days and Lachlan and Jack are up at the top.
Would second essential baby as a place to check out some Aussie baby names. There are some complete shockers out there. The lovely ladies (bless them!) aren't backward at coming forward to give their opinions on names IYKWIM .