Is it a huge faux pas to change a house name?

[TwoDrifters2]

Currently in the process of house hunting, moving from London to the countryside. I was just wondering what the “done thing” is when you fall in love with a house, buy and move in, but you don’t like the current name of it?!

I know it’s relatively easy to change, just notifying the post office etc. but I was wondering whether it’s the kind of thing that other locals find irritating or would look down upon?

Sort of a “‘Hyacinth Cottage’ has been good enough for the last 18 owners, who do this lot think they are? Coming down from London and changing names…”

Especially if the name has a connection to the village or hamlet name e.g. “Anvil House” based in “Anvil Corner”.

Would this be a huge faux pas or am I overthinking this and literally no one except the postman cares what your home is called?

(PS - I don’t dislike either “Hyacinth Cottage” or “Anvil House”, I merely used these as examples!)

This depends, if it’s a very old name, in a very old house, then yes you should keep it as is.

If it’s a relatively new house, say in the last fifty years with some random name no one would care.

Our house has a name but we never use it. We just use the number. Unless you want to call it something else I would just ignore the name (Assuming it is numbered). Quite a few houses on our road pretend they only have names, no numbers on the gates, but they actually do, unless the numbers really start at 13 and leave some out (there is apparently no number 14, but strangely there is a house next to 16 which “only” has a name. It’s much classier to just be “The Lodge” than number 12, don’t you know. Even if it does actually mean it used to be the lodge house of a local mansion and therefore not posh at all.

Don't anger the ghosts.

As she’s posting in rural living it’s highly likely it only has a name, mine does.

I’d agree though if your house has a number, use it and ignore the name, it’s really tacky to name your numbered house, it’s not your child.

Thanks so much to everyone for your thoughts and help! It seems to be erring on the side of a faux pas rather than otherwise so we will stick with any house name that we buy.

Would you be buying a house to move straight into, or demolish and rebuild/ completely renovate?

PIL's bought a run down, tiny cottage with its own name. Nothing overly historial or sentimental to the area. They demolished the cottage, rebuilt and re-named it. No one locally mentioned the name change that they are aware of. It it had been historical or significant though, I'd sure there would have been words!

@Elouera To move straight into and live in.

Our house has a name (no number) that we had originally planned to change. Been there 3 years and not got around to it but I don’t think we will now. People have enough trouble finding it as it is. Plus it’s grown on me over time.

We changed the name of our house once we bought it. When it was built it had been given a rather bland name along the line of “Wood View”. The couple who owned the house before us decided they wanted to rename it in their own honour and gave it a terrible personalised name. Knowing my neighbours as I now do, I am sure that they did not mind at all when we renamed it to something a lot less cheesy.
We weren’t so keen on the original name, so did pick a different one, but all we got were pleasant comments from the neighbours who said that they weren’t surprised that we didn’t stick with the previous owner’s moniker.

@Bluntness100

As she’s posting in rural living it’s highly likely it only has a name, mine does.

I’d agree though if your house has a number, use it and ignore the name, it’s really tacky to name your numbered house, it’s not your child.

Yes, ours has only ever had a name too. It is a shame, as if we could have had a number I wouldn’t have minded just having that.

It depends on your neighbours, some might really care and others might not.

@Bluntness100

As she’s posting in rural living it’s highly likely it only has a name, mine does.

I’d agree though if your house has a number, use it and ignore the name, it’s really tacky to name your numbered house, it’s not your child.

A relative of mine did this. No one ever used the made up name.

Even the post man doesn't care. I worked in a call centre as a student selling theatre tickets. All houses had numbers and no drop down boxes for 'Rose Cottage'

I'd love to refer to my house as 'The Weavers Cottage' but it has a number and no one sales cares that it was a weavers work shop.