Names as social indicators

[Laly]

What names are, for example, considered high-class or lower class in your country? And how would your name be considered?

By the way, I found an article on the names that are the most common among those that have the best/the worst high school diploma results in France in 2020:

https://www.dna.fr/education/2020/07...mention-au-bac

Best male results:

Gaspard, Augustin, Emile, Timothée, Félix, Etienne, Alban, Grégoire, Mathieu, Martin.

Best female results:

Joséphine, Adèle, Anouk, Apolline, Garance, Diane, Alice, Iris, Jeanne, Lison (My daughter's name is among them ).

The names with the best results are then chic and noble names.

Among the worst male results, there are rather names such as: Jordan, Rayan, Allan, Walid, and Mehdi. So we find, unsurprisingly, Anglo-Saxon names that are popular among white trash people in francophone countries, and Muslim names.

[Faklon]

Isn't Mehdi like Iranian or North African or smth?

We don't generally have "high-class" names here but we have some larpers choosing forgotten ancient Greek names. You won't see the average fisherman or shepherd naming his daughter Nefeli for example.

edit: Walid isn't Arabic too?

[Östsvensk]

In Sweden, it is considered "higher class" to spell your name with a C instead of a K. Carl, Eric, Victor and Fredric instead of Karl, Erik, Viktor and Fredrik. Our former PM Ingvar Carlsson changed his last name from being born Karlsson to be spelled with a C. For women, it is to put a H after T, like Elisabeth and Christina instead of Elisabet and Kristina.

Highest earning names among men are apparently Håkan and Mats, and for women Annika and Åsa.

Names that end with Y, like Jimmy, Ronny, Conny and so forth are thought of as "white trash" names and people with them are stereotyped as more likely to be criminal.

[Laly]

Isn't Mehdi like Iranian or North African or smth?

We don't generally have "high-class" names here but we have some larpers choosing forgotten ancient Greek names. You won't see the average fisherman or shepherd naming his daughter Nefeli for example.

edit: Walid isn't Arabic too?

What you say is very interesting. In francophone countries, the name is very much a social marker. There are the lower-class names, that are generally Anglo-Saxon names like also Kevin, Jessica, for the white trash, and then, the Muslim names, for our dear colonisers, like as you mentioned, Mehdi and Walid. Regarding female names, the ones ending with an "-a" are generally considered lower-class. Then there are the neutral, traditional ones, and then, there are the names favoured by high-class people, which are chic and noble names, often composed of two names with a dash in between, like "Charles-Antoine". High-class names are often of Greek origin.

[Celestia]

This isn’t really the case for the United States. Maybe classical names like Eleanor, Ophelia, etc. You’ll see those names in every social stance but higher class tends to stick with classical names rather than new age ones.

[Laly]

For example, Jordan Bardella, a star of the far-right in France, vice-president of Marine Le Pen's party, was attacked a lot because of his low-class, "proletarian" name, "Jordan":

[Faklon]

What you say is very interesting. In francophone countries, the name is very much a social marker. There are the lower-class names, that are generally Anglo-Saxon names also like Kevin, Jessica, for the white trash, and then, the Muslim names, for our dear colonisers, like as you mentioned, Mehdi and Walid. Regarding female names, the ones ending with an "-a" are generally considered lower-class. Then there are the neutral, traditional ones, and then, there are the names favoured by high-class people, which are chic and noble names, often composed of two names with a dash in between, like "Charles-Antoine". High-class names are often of Greek origin.

There are some names like Vaggelis/Vaggos that are considered to be more brutish. In TV series you will see the working class hero portayed as Vaggos or Takis and Mitsos (both from Dimitris) or something rather than Socrates (both ancient and Christian name) but I wouldn't go as far as to say that they represent a social marker.

Do you perceive the names of the "colonizers" to represent the French working class? We also stereotype Albanians as Florian and Edi.

[Laly]

There are some names like Vaggelis/Vaggos that are considered to be more brutish. In TV series you will see the working class hero portayed as Vaggos or Takis and Mitsos (both from Dimitris) or something rather than Socrates (both ancient and Christian name) but I wouldn't go as far as to say that they represent a social marker.

Do you perceive the names of the "colonizers" to represent the French working class? We also stereotype Albanians as Florian and Edi.

I would rather say the names of the "colonizers" represent the class of the assisted people.





Is my daughter's name, Apolline, common in Greece?

[Faklon]

Is my daughter's name, Apolline, common in Greece?

Very rare as Apollonia, Apollonas (Apollo) is much more common but still not your everyday guy. Can be one of those "cultured" names I guess despite its presence in medieval Christians.

[Laly]

When I say "Anglo-Saxon names", I actually mean names that became popular within some social strata through the influence of American pop culture.