It's also a dead give-away class marker of the lower classes.

Also, the number of people who hate their "unique and quirky" name they got from their parents is much, much, much, much higher than the number of people who hate their normal name.

I have a unique name and it’s served me well in life, for what it’s worth. People tend to remember you, although that’s perhaps going to change with more children having unique names.

I concur. I have a unique first name that's simply two common names concatenated with a dash. If I'm worried about the impression or pronunciation I can simply use half of it.

> It's also a dead give-away class marker of the lower classes.

Plenty of upper- and middle-class babies with unique, or at least unusual, names.

In some countries if you have a weird name people it means that you are either a foreigner or you parents are complete morons. Some names strongly imply the later.

> Plenty of upper- and middle-class babies with unique, or at least unusual, names.

Such as?

In my experience, upper and upper-middle class kids get common names, usually a bit on the conservative side, nothing that sticks out too much. Never crazy spelling, never unique names.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg announces birth of his sixth child, Sixtus”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/05/jacob-rees-...

Unlike the other examples in this thread, I'll give you credit for that one.

Interestingly the article shows a way for upper-class people to signal upper-class-ness through names. The other kids all have a normal given name, and can easily fly under the radar. But once you start saying all of their first names, it's a clear signal.

(Because it is in line with how many European royals name their children.)

> Such as? In my experience upper and upper-middle class kids get common names, ... Never crazy spelling, never unique names.

X Æ A-12 Musk?

Never say never.

A name like that screams new money / no roots to me.

There is a big difference between uncommon names but with deep roots like the above mentioned Sixtus and completely unique names X Æ A-12.

The former is very common in the upper classes, the latter not so much.

Being rich doesn't make you upper class, evidently.

If your first name is really henrik, that would be pretty unique in the English speaking world. I think what you say might be true for your country but not really in others. Many upperclass people have unique names in the United States (and also in Britain I think ). In fact it used to be quite fashionable with some upperclass people to have a vaguely foreign sounding name especially one hinting at some kind of European connection.

Maybe not in Europe (and that is arguable depending on the country). In the US it absolutely does.

No.

Here's a good resource if you want to read up on how class works in the US: https://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html

> Such as?

Moon Unit, Dweezil, and Diva Thin Muffin Zappa.

Raddix Madden

Lyra Antarctica Sheeran

Kal-El Coppola Cage

Pilot Inspektor Lee

Blue Ivy Carter

Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Busson

Aleph Portman-Millepied

Bear Blu Jarecki

Kulture Kiari Cephus

Sparrow James Midnight Madden

Exton Downey

Seargeoh Stallone

North, Saint, and Chicago West

Rumer, Scout and Tellulah Belle Willis

None of these people are upper-class?

> None of these people are upper-class?

In the usual sense used in the US, they’d mostly be above the upper middle class and into the upper class.

In the more theoretically grounded system otherwise used when discussing capitalist societies, they’d still all be, at birth, be at least petit bourgeois, so the idea that such names are clear indication of membership in the “lower classes” is only even possibly true of capitalist classes in the narrowest possible sense (“not of the haut bourgeoisie”, though even that is a stretch), or maybe if you are speaking of vestigial pre-capitalist class systems, and still just as narrowly (“not the titled nobility”).

Maybe he meant the name unique, not a unique name.

Yeah, it's more that unique names are more likely to carry class markers (for any class) than common names, because common names are... common.

And nobody ever understands you when you introduce yourself, or when they're trying to pronounce it from reading it.

source: I have a very rare first name.

That depends upon where the person with that unique name lives, If the vocabulary is from the native language and the person lives in the same region then they don't have much of a trouble.

Then again non-unique names from native regions cannot be pronounced by non-native speakers, My name is far from unique and native English speakers have refereed to it as 'Ab...followed by several other syllables'.

I like a common first name and uncommon middle name.

The first name gives anonymity. The middle gives uniqueness that is rarely used except when you want the full formal name and want to be sure you have the right person.

Thank you, I've been running needgap for over 2 years.

You do have a point regarding security implications of the unique names, Considering people get swatted and have even died for their unique social media handle it might not be worth to pursue a unique name for that.