Pretentious Names, what does your list look like?

[normadix]

Reading through another thread got me thinking, what is your idea of a pretentious name? Boys and girls
And FYI to me pretentious =/= bad necessarily. I'm just curious.

[normadix]

Girls: Charlotte, Seraphina, Violet, Blair, Whitney
Boys: Henry, Spencer, Preston, Asher, Nathaniel, Sawyer

*i actually really like some names I think of as pretentious

[billyhorrible]

Girls: Isla, Cambria, Muffy, Buffy, Claire
Boys: Preston, Thatcher, Spencer, Parker, Biff, Skipper

[Oliver's Bear]

Boys:  Thaddeus/Thad, Emerson, August, Maximilian, Winston

Girls:  mostly it's a question of pronunciation with girl's names for me.  I find Corrine pretentious when pronounced Core-in rather than Core-een.  Likewise, Caroline pronounced Care-O-lynn, as opposed to Care-o-LINE.  Other than that it's more down to people I know with certain names -- for example, every Erica I have ever known has been a big time bitch, so I find that name a bit uppity and pretentious.

[cabbagecabbage]

Most names I hear people say are pretentious (in life, not this thread) sound just trendy/aspirational and actually make me think "they're trying so hard to seem fancy." I'm thinking of Preston, Pierce, and nonsense last names like Kerrington on a girl.

I always thought Elsbeth sounded pretentious and super long multi name names like Howard Steven Alexander Douglas Jones.

[normadix]

^ yes to Carrington or Kensington

[helenahhandbasket]

One of my favorite boys names has been deemed as "too pretentious" by this board (back on TD). It's Sterling, I love it.

Other pretentious names that I like for a boy are Rudyard, Conrad, Winston, Duncan, Vaughn, Tate, Preston, Quentin, Blake.

I have a harder time coming up with a name I find pretentious on a girl.

[cabbagecabbage]

May 20, 2016 8:55:09 GMT -5 helenahhandbasket said:

One of my favorite boys names has been deemed as "too pretentious" by this board (back on TD). It's Sterling, I love it.

Other pretentious names that I like for a boy are Rudyard, Conrad, Winston, Duncan, Vaughn, Tate, Preston, Quentin, Blake.

I have a harder time coming up with a name I find pretentious on a girl.

It's funny because I think Preston or Tate are very pretentious but Conrad and Duncan are just awesome names. Vaughn is hipster and Blake feels a little trashy.

[helenahhandbasket]

May 20, 2016 9:47:25 GMT -5 cabbagecabbage said:

May 20, 2016 8:55:09 GMT -5 helenahhandbasket said:

One of my favorite boys names has been deemed as "too pretentious" by this board (back on TD). It's Sterling, I love it.

Other pretentious names that I like for a boy are Rudyard, Conrad, Winston, Duncan, Vaughn, Tate, Preston, Quentin, Blake.

I have a harder time coming up with a name I find pretentious on a girl.

It's funny because I think Preston or Tate are very pretentious but Conrad and Duncan are just awesome names. Vaughn is hipster and Blake feels a little trashy.

I think all of these names are awesome, but if I had to pick pretentious names that I like, these would be it.

See I don't get trashy at all from Blake. Maybe that's a regional association.

[joy]

May 20, 2016 7:08:25 GMT -5 normadix said:

^ yes to Carrington or Kensington

I don't find these pretentious so much as just horrific.

Pretentious boy's name?  It's a reflex: Preston.  I see others have a similar reflex!

[purple]

This is a really interesting thread!

I have a visceral reaction against surnames used as first names. If it's a family tradition, fabulous, go for it. Otherwise, why use a surname when there are so many wonderful first names out there? It's especially bad when obviously masculine names like Madison and Mackenzie are given to girls.

Which minor rant is my way of saying that I'm surprised to see so many surnames in people's lists. My immediate reaction to a surname as first name is, "How naff!", not "How pretentious!"

[wibblywobbly]

It seems a little pretentious to me when people use the full name when there is a very commonly used nickname. Like insisting it's Joshua instead of Josh. I like a lot of those names but they almost always get shortened so it's weird weird when someone insists on the full name.

[harlowjune1984]

May 20, 2016 11:01:48 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

It seems a little pretentious to me when people use the full name when there is a very commonly used nickname. Like insisting it's Joshua instead of Josh. I like a lot of those names but they almost always get shortened so it's weird weird when someone insists on the full name.

Or like when EVERYONE calls a man by the name that they prefer to go by, only to have the wife call him by his legal name. Like we have two friends that go by Mike with EVERYONE, yet both their wives call them Michael. We have a friend named Pat, and everyone calls him Pat.....except his wife calls him Patrick. I think that it would be different if there was a mix of people calling them by their nickname and their full name, but it is weird to me when everyone refers to them as Mike or Pat...except their wives. Apparently that bothers my husband too, because he mentioned it one day that he feels like it sounds like his wife owns him or something. 

If someone was named something like Christopher, and they have always gone by Christopher by everyone...that wouldn't bother me so much. 

[Widget123]

My immediate reaction was to think of names like Kensington. Really any name that is a place, especially if it is the name of a famous landmark.

[wibblywobbly]

May 20, 2016 14:33:24 GMT -5 harlowjune1984 said:

May 20, 2016 11:01:48 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

It seems a little pretentious to me when people use the full name when there is a very commonly used nickname. Like insisting it's Joshua instead of Josh. I like a lot of those names but they almost always get shortened so it's weird weird when someone insists on the full name.

Or like when EVERYONE calls a man by the name that they prefer to go by, only to have the wife call him by his legal name. Like we have two friends that go by Mike with EVERYONE, yet both their wives call them Michael. We have a friend named Pat, and everyone calls him Pat.....except his wife calls him Patrick. I think that it would be different if there was a mix of people calling them by their nickname and their full name, but it is weird to me when everyone refers to them as Mike or Pat...except their wives. Apparently that bothers my husband too, because he mentioned it one day that he feels like it sounds like his wife owns him or something. 

If someone was named something like Christopher, and they have always gone by Christopher by everyone...that wouldn't bother me so much. 

Yes! For some reason, when I was trying to explain this, I kept picture the mom or the gf/wife correcting everyone. "Aw, little Joe is adorable!" "It's Joseph." Or "The other day we were hanging out with Nate and - "  "Nathaniel!"

[Stormtroopooper]

May 20, 2016 15:44:47 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

May 20, 2016 14:33:24 GMT -5 harlowjune1984 said:

Or like when EVERYONE calls a man by the name that they prefer to go by, only to have the wife call him by his legal name. Like we have two friends that go by Mike with EVERYONE, yet both their wives call them Michael. We have a friend named Pat, and everyone calls him Pat.....except his wife calls him Patrick. I think that it would be different if there was a mix of people calling them by their nickname and their full name, but it is weird to me when everyone refers to them as Mike or Pat...except their wives. Apparently that bothers my husband too, because he mentioned it one day that he feels like it sounds like his wife owns him or something. 

If someone was named something like Christopher, and they have always gone by Christopher by everyone...that wouldn't bother me so much. 

Yes! For some reason, when I was trying to explain this, I kept picture the mom or the gf/wife correcting everyone. "Aw, little Joe is adorable!" "It's Joseph." Or "The other day we were hanging out with Nate and - "  "Nathaniel!"

My kid always goes by Harrison, and if anyone calls him Harry, they will most definitely be corrected. I don't see that as pretentious. That's not his name.

[bromios]

May 20, 2016 22:25:55 GMT -5 Stormtroopooper said:

May 20, 2016 15:44:47 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

Yes! For some reason, when I was trying to explain this, I kept picture the mom or the gf/wife correcting everyone. "Aw, little Joe is adorable!" "It's Joseph." Or "The other day we were hanging out with Nate and - "  "Nathaniel!"

My kid always goes by Harrison, and if anyone calls him Harry, they will most definitely be corrected. I don't see that as pretentious. That's not his name.

I agree with this, unless the nn used is one that the child, I myself, or my wife has chosen. Incidentally, one of the reasons I can't do the name Nathaniel is because the thought of someone calling my child Nate makes me queasy. There is a major, qualitative difference between Nate and Nathaniel. Of course, this is not true of all names and their nns. For example, both Alexander and Sasha are fantastic, and if Alexander were my son's fn I would probably call him Sasha all the time.

[seamonster]

May 20, 2016 14:33:24 GMT -5 harlowjune1984 said:

May 20, 2016 11:01:48 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

It seems a little pretentious to me when people use the full name when there is a very commonly used nickname. Like insisting it's Joshua instead of Josh. I like a lot of those names but they almost always get shortened so it's weird weird when someone insists on the full name.

Or like when EVERYONE calls a man by the name that they prefer to go by, only to have the wife call him by his legal name. Like we have two friends that go by Mike with EVERYONE, yet both their wives call them Michael. We have a friend named Pat, and everyone calls him Pat.....except his wife calls him Patrick. I think that it would be different if there was a mix of people calling them by their nickname and their full name, but it is weird to me when everyone refers to them as Mike or Pat...except their wives. Apparently that bothers my husband too, because he mentioned it one day that he feels like it sounds like his wife owns him or something. 

If someone was named something like Christopher, and they have always gone by Christopher by everyone...that wouldn't bother me so much. 

Sometimes it seems to be one of two things a) their full name is more like a pet name because only their spouse uses it or b) they'd like to be called, but people keep shortening their name because that's how they're introduced to someone or people just like to go with nicknames.

I push for no nickname for DS because I love his fn and hate the nickname. He can choose to go by it later, but he'll always be full fn to me. It's the difference of one letter in length and a syllable, but it feels like a much larger change. My sister grew up going by a nickname for her middle and as an adult goes by her first, so you can tell when people met her or how they met her based on what they call her.

[diamondduck]

Going back to the original question: there are exceptions, but generally I find surnames pretentious, whether on a boy or a girl. Again, another one with some exceptions, but I also can find it pretentious when an American English speaker raising a child in the US uses a pronunciation that isn't the most common one associated with the name in American English.

[wibblywobbly]

Stormtroopooper I love the name Harrison and would push for no nickname too. I just mean when a name is almost 99% of the time shortened it sounds odd when someone snootily corrects people. I wouldn't always shorten Harrison to Harry but I'd probably always shorten Joshua, Thomas, or Matthew because Josh, Tom, and Matt are SO commonly used.

I always imagine the episode of Friends where Rachel has a crush on Joshua and people call him Josh and she corrects them "it's Joshua."

[Stormtroopooper]

May 21, 2016 16:18:27 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

Stormtroopooper I love the name Harrison and would push for no nickname too. I just mean when a name is almost 99% of the time shortened it sounds odd when someone snootily corrects people. I wouldn't always shorten Harrison to Harry but I'd probably always shorten Joshua, Thomas, or Matthew because Josh, Tom, and Matt are SO commonly used.

I always imagine the episode of Friends where Rachel has a crush on Joshua and people call him Josh and she corrects them "it's Joshua."

I don't think you can just assume that because someone's name is Joshua that he goes by Josh, or Katherine Kate/Katie, etc.

I actually have the opposite situation with my H. His name is Matthew. His entire family calls him Matthew, but l call him Matt because that's how he first introduced himself to me, and his friends call him Matt. He'll answer to either, but to me he'll always be Matt.

[Stormtroopooper]

May 20, 2016 23:58:13 GMT -5 bromios said:

May 20, 2016 22:25:55 GMT -5 Stormtroopooper said:

My kid always goes by Harrison, and if anyone calls him Harry, they will most definitely be corrected. I don't see that as pretentious. That's not his name.

I agree with this, unless the nn used is one that the child, I myself, or my wife has chosen. Incidentally, one of the reasons I can't do the name Nathaniel is because the thought of someone calling my child Nate makes me queasy. There is a major, qualitative difference between Nate and Nathaniel. Of course, this is not true of all names and their nns. For example, both Alexander and Sasha are fantastic, and if Alexander were my son's fn I would probably call him Sasha all the time.

Agreed.

Nathaniel is on our short list, and I really dislike Nate or Nathan, so he would be Nathaniel, no nn.

I think until the child is old enough to decide if he/she prefers a nn, what Mom (or Dad) says goes. If Harrison decides he wants to be called Harry, Harris, Hank, or whatever when he's older, that's his call. But just like my H's mom still calls him Matthew, not Matt, I think HC will always be Harrison to me.

[wibblywobbly]

Stormtroopooper I'm not assuming everyone goes by shorter names. My DH has a long name that has a very common shortened version but he doesn't go by it. I'm saying, that when people go by shortened versions and someone else is always correcting it to the long version it makes that other person and (by association) the long version of the name sound pretentious.

I like the name Patrick, hate Pat. Like Thomas, don't like Tom. However, I would feel like I (personally, not speaking for the masses here) sound pretentious if I was constantly correcting people. Because people use short versions and NNs a lot. So I have crossed those potential names off our list because I don't want to feel like I sound pretentious.

Sorry.

[ottertails]

Longer names seem to be considered pretentious, especially if parents decide they don't want to a nn them. Most of my GPs are considered pretentious by others, so here are the ones that get the side eye the most:

For girls it's usually the frilly ones/ones that aren't common in the US: Araceli, Araminta, Calista, Cressida, Delfina/Delphine, Evangeline, Evelina, Felicity, Gisela, Kerensa, Marcella, Marcellina, Medeina, Ophelia, Ottilie, Rafaela, Saskia, Serephine, Vevina, Viviana

Boys tend to be the unfamiliar ones in the US too, but also older sounding names: Alaric, Alistair, Auberon, Azrael, Balthazar, Basil, Byron, Casimir, Caspian, Cecil, Devereaux, Ivor, Leopold, Lysander, Montgomery, Orion, Orson, Ozias, Peregrine, Rafferty, Raphael, Solomon, Steffan

[jags8]

May 20, 2016 22:25:55 GMT -5 Stormtroopooper said:

May 20, 2016 15:44:47 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

Yes! For some reason, when I was trying to explain this, I kept picture the mom or the gf/wife correcting everyone. "Aw, little Joe is adorable!" "It's Joseph." Or "The other day we were hanging out with Nate and - "  "Nathaniel!"

My kid always goes by Harrison, and if anyone calls him Harry, they will most definitely be corrected. I don't see that as pretentious. That's not his name.

Agree!!! My 6-week-old son is Henry, and someone already tried calling him Hank! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

[sep509bride]

May 19, 2016 22:55:52 GMT -5 normadix said:

Girls: Charlotte, Seraphina, Violet, Blair, Whitney
Boys: Henry, Spencer, Preston, Asher, Nathaniel, Sawyer

*i actually really like some names I think of as pretentious

Ha, DD's name is *poof*. Apparently we are pretentious.

[normadix]

May 22, 2016 9:54:51 GMT -5 sep509bride said:

May 19, 2016 22:55:52 GMT -5 normadix said:

Girls: Charlotte, Seraphina, Violet, Blair, Whitney
Boys: Henry, Spencer, Preston, Asher, Nathaniel, Sawyer

*i actually really like some names I think of as pretentious

Ha, DD's name is Violet Whitney. Apparently we are pretentious.

Whitney is a family name though.

Whitney Corinne is actually on our girl list

[beenandgone]

Lurker weighing in, but I don't generally feel like a specific name sounds pretentious, but super long, multiple first and middle names are pretentious: like William Samuel Michael Montgomery last name for example.

Or repeated family names after the third generation. Willie Williams the Fifth, Tommy Thompson VI. Etc.

[kellybenelly83]

May 22, 2016 18:30:03 GMT -5 beenandgone said:

Lurker weighing in, but I don't generally feel like a specific name sounds pretentious, but super long, multiple first and middle names are pretentious: like William Samuel Michael Montgomery last name for example.

Or repeated family names after the third generation. Willie Williams the Fifth, Tommy Thompson VI. Etc.

Add me to the list of pretentiousness then...son is Ryan James William Lastname. Both his middle names are family related and extremely important to us. Most of the reactions we've had are very positive though (I'm not actually offended

I do however agree with the William Thomas the Third though....that's awful.

My bff is naming her kid Samuel in a few weeks and it's one I have always found a little pretentious but I love Sam. Also I love her and baby so I would never say anything.

[catahoulatte]

May 20, 2016 22:25:55 GMT -5 Stormtroopooper said:

May 20, 2016 15:44:47 GMT -5 wibblywobbly said:

Yes! For some reason, when I was trying to explain this, I kept picture the mom or the gf/wife correcting everyone. "Aw, little Joe is adorable!" "It's Joseph." Or "The other day we were hanging out with Nate and - "  "Nathaniel!"

My kid always goes by Harrison, and if anyone calls him Harry, they will most definitely be corrected. I don't see that as pretentious. That's not his name.

This is us too. Gabriel goes by his name, not "Gabe". I find it annoying when people shorten his name after being introduced to Gabriel.