New Post
Search
Help[Opinions] about Milo, Oliver, Jasper, etc...
in reply to a message by Elinor
Why is Oliver more pretentious in America than it is in the UK?
Certainly it's been popular for longer in the UK, but there aren't that many Olivers in the 30-50 cohort in the UK. And there was a classist element to the name's resurgence there, too; an Oliver in my brother's year group (born 81-82) got called posh all the time.
I might tend to agree with you on Sebastian, but Jasper, Oliver, Milo and others like Felix, Jude, Crispin, Barnaby, Edmund/Ned, Jonathan/Jonty August/Gus, Frederick/Freddie, Archibald/Archie, Henry/Harry, Maximilian/Max (just to list off some of the boys' ), are often given out of a sense of sort of historic fun, not so much pretension. When I first heard some of the names that my cousins (the posh London cousins, especially) and my siblings were giving their children, I rolled my eyes for sure. But over the years I sort of came to realise that all names can be criticised on various grounds, and a name, any name, that has meaning and historical use as a name is probably good in some way, and that if a parent is naming their sons Felix and Oliver, that's fine, they're good fun names that also have their historical side to give them substance.
There are some names that yes, I do think cross the line into irredeemable pretension, but few are widely used, and often the ones which come across "try-hard" are completely acceptable when the circumstances are explained- for example, my cousin's daughters Ottilie and Sophrona, who are upper-class Londoners, yes, but the girls are both named for grandparents, and are widely known as Tillie and Rona. And my cousin and her husband are really good about instilling in their daughters (and new son, I hope, who has totally unpretentious name of Frank, a sort of comic counterpoint to his sisters' full names) that they are, in fact, unusually priviledged and must not take what they have for granted...with the end result that my middle-class neices and nephews are in certain cases more spoiled.
The last bit I wanted to add was that I guess it's all just a matter of where you're looking from. In Canada and I suspect the US, people don't understand the current British mania for nicknames as given names- Ellie, Millie, Evie, Libby, Abbie, Rosie, Gracie, Tilly, Charlie, Jake, Alfie, Ben, Jamie, Archie, Joe, Sam, Billy, Jay, Freddie, Zak...one friend asked what those children will do when they grow up-or if they're meant to grow up at all with names like that. She then commented that they were so self-consciously unpretentious that they ended up sounding pretentious! I think that's a bit harsh, but I did sort of see her point. For my part, Canadians' mania for names reflecting their heritage seems odd- Mairead, Cillian and Diarmid's parents who don't speak a word of Irish, and have been in Canada for generations so that they're as much German, French and English, etc., as Irish- I don't get that, but hey, that's okay too.
We either bash people for being pretentious, sheep-like, or kre8tyv...and then there are no names left.
Super-long post, I hope I'm not breaking any rules here!
sa
Certainly it's been popular for longer in the UK, but there aren't that many Olivers in the 30-50 cohort in the UK. And there was a classist element to the name's resurgence there, too; an Oliver in my brother's year group (born 81-82) got called posh all the time.
I might tend to agree with you on Sebastian, but Jasper, Oliver, Milo and others like Felix, Jude, Crispin, Barnaby, Edmund/Ned, Jonathan/Jonty August/Gus, Frederick/Freddie, Archibald/Archie, Henry/Harry, Maximilian/Max (just to list off some of the boys' ), are often given out of a sense of sort of historic fun, not so much pretension. When I first heard some of the names that my cousins (the posh London cousins, especially) and my siblings were giving their children, I rolled my eyes for sure. But over the years I sort of came to realise that all names can be criticised on various grounds, and a name, any name, that has meaning and historical use as a name is probably good in some way, and that if a parent is naming their sons Felix and Oliver, that's fine, they're good fun names that also have their historical side to give them substance.
There are some names that yes, I do think cross the line into irredeemable pretension, but few are widely used, and often the ones which come across "try-hard" are completely acceptable when the circumstances are explained- for example, my cousin's daughters Ottilie and Sophrona, who are upper-class Londoners, yes, but the girls are both named for grandparents, and are widely known as Tillie and Rona. And my cousin and her husband are really good about instilling in their daughters (and new son, I hope, who has totally unpretentious name of Frank, a sort of comic counterpoint to his sisters' full names) that they are, in fact, unusually priviledged and must not take what they have for granted...with the end result that my middle-class neices and nephews are in certain cases more spoiled.
The last bit I wanted to add was that I guess it's all just a matter of where you're looking from. In Canada and I suspect the US, people don't understand the current British mania for nicknames as given names- Ellie, Millie, Evie, Libby, Abbie, Rosie, Gracie, Tilly, Charlie, Jake, Alfie, Ben, Jamie, Archie, Joe, Sam, Billy, Jay, Freddie, Zak...one friend asked what those children will do when they grow up-or if they're meant to grow up at all with names like that. She then commented that they were so self-consciously unpretentious that they ended up sounding pretentious! I think that's a bit harsh, but I did sort of see her point. For my part, Canadians' mania for names reflecting their heritage seems odd- Mairead, Cillian and Diarmid's parents who don't speak a word of Irish, and have been in Canada for generations so that they're as much German, French and English, etc., as Irish- I don't get that, but hey, that's okay too.
We either bash people for being pretentious, sheep-like, or kre8tyv...and then there are no names left.
Super-long post, I hope I'm not breaking any rules here!
sa
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1