|
I, for one, would be interested what makes them tick.....
|
I suspect if you or I, RP, dealt with no-one but lackeys and sycophants for 15 years we might lose touch with reality too and get lost in our own fabulousness.
At least the little Beckhams themselves won't have to mix it at school with those inclined to make fun of their names. It's the unborn spawn of those here too dim to realize it's a bad idea to imitate them that I feel sorry for.
|
... dealt with no-one but lackeys and sycophants for 15 years ...
I've never spoken to David Beckham, but I know a few hacks who have.
The guy is down-to-earth, streetwise, and well in touch with reality.
Haven't a clue about Victoria, but given what David is like, it's unlikely she fits WdB's description either.
|
|
Lucky escape for the child. If Beckham was still at Madrid she'd have been Harper Twenty-Three.
|
iffy,
I'm sure they are perfectly nice people, but the name they have chosen is symptomatic of being boderline potty, pity the poor kid lumbered with that.
|
I can just about understand Harper as being aspirational in a (sorry) council-house kind of way. It'll just be added to the chorus of 'Taylor' and 'Madison' and similar got-from-cheap-TV girls' names that can already be heard at a thousand school gates. Sadly, you hear the name and just know her first ear piercing came before her first word. And sadder still, you know that employers in years to come will put the Kylies and Chanelles (and the Rios and Jermaynes) in one pile and the Olivias and Hannahs in another.
'Seven', though, is just ridiculous. I wasn't expecting the Beckhams to call her Harriet, but really...
|
|
I initially mis-heard it as "Harpic" but that would have been clean around the bend !
|
I wonder if they would have called her "Quareter to Eight" if she'd been late? Or even "After Eight" if there were real complications. I mean they're minted aren't they?
I'll um...coat etc...
|
Harper is an unusual but not unknown, and perfectly respectable, American girl's name. Seven is slightly eccentric but that's allowed with second names.
Bunch of damn turkeys you guys are sometimes... heh heh.
|
>>I can just about understand Harper as being aspirational in a (sorry) council-house kind of way<<
Putting 'sorry' in brackets, doesn't in some way excuse the rudeness.
Pat ( the politically correct pedant)
Last edited by: pda on Mon 11 Jul 11 at 18:21
|
>> Putting 'sorry' in brackets, doesn't in some way excuse the rudeness.
>>
+1
The British upper-class have a long tradition of unusual, dare I say "ostentatious" names.
It's not confined to people from any particular walk of life.
My real given name is the name of a saint, BTW. The resemblance ends there - obviously! ;-)
|
If it's PC you want, perhaps it should have been 'differently classed'.
A name that draws attention to itself is more likely to be a burden to the child than a benefit. I've never liked my name - it doesn't articulate well with my surname, to the point where I have to do Grenfellesque comedy enunciation to get it across on the phone. Americans can't get it at all, and many of my non-native-English-speaking colleagues struggle with it too. I dread introducing myself, which gets too many conversations off to a bad start, so I empathize with any child - of any social class - whose parents saw naming as a competitive sport and tried too hard.
My children, as a consequence, have names that might be considered conservative, but which have equivalents in every European language (even Hungarian) and which they will never have to spell out or explain to anyone. That way, I feel I've kept one of my key promises to them. The other - no home haircuts - is still holding up as well.
|
There are, many many many names to give your children, some of the uncommon, some of them classy, some of them, unusual some of them boring. All of them will give your children no grief.
To use "seven", frankly, shows gross stupidity and a lack of imagination and intelligence on behalf of the parents.
Berks the pair of them.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 11 Jul 11 at 20:05
|
>> Berks the pair of them.
Unduly severe in my opinion Zeddo.
When my first child was born, being 25 at the time I gave her a boy's name as her second name. Her mother was OK with it, but the registrar demurred. I explained that it was one of my own names, omitting to add that it was also the name of a modern artist of some note who I knew and admired. I insisted, and the registrar shrugged and said OK. If people think that makes me a berk, they won't be alone, but up theirs frankly.
In her adolescence my daughter became embarrassed by that name and suggested changing it to another name, a sort of unisex one. As she had rather sweetly chosen the name of one of that artist's characters I didn't even mind, although of course it is anyone's 'right' to go by any names they choose. Later though she came back to the original boy's name.
Second names hardly count anyway. They are just fine tuning. I've got four names myself plus a confirmation name, all Biblical or Norman, all extremely boring. Londoners of Caribbean extraction very often go by 'street names', often charming and evocative ones. I have known many such people and those are nearly always the names I know them by. Only intimates bother to divulge their official identities which tend to be more cumbersome in use.
|
|
What one isw called on the birth certificate is of little importance. It was only when I recently obtained a copy of my full certificate for a passport application that I discovered that I had been spelling two of my three first names wrong ever since I could write.
|
>> I have known many such people and those are nearly always the names I know them by. Only intimates bother to divulge their official identities
I've just remembered though that someone whose street name was Chubby took exception once to being so addressed by me. It was what everyone called him and at no time did I ever hear him referred to by any other name; and we were certainly not friends.
A thuggish, bottle-scarred man of Jamaican origin, this Chubby had seen me many times but was somehow making an issue of our not having been formally introduced. Either he didn't like my other acquaintances in the area or he was a stupid racist. Almost certainly the latter I think.
Cuts both ways, that stuff. Feels a bit odd at first, being on the other end of racism. But you soon get used to it.
|
|
The name Harper has been gaining popularity over the last few years. babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/popularity_of_Harper.html
|
Several people I work with chose not to use there given first name. The only reason I know this is because its company policy to use your "real" name in the corporate address book.
My second son has a slightly unusual name, but his personality suits his name - he is a bit of a character. I see nothing wrong with more unusual names, and think individuality should be encouraged
|
I have always rather liked the Beckhams. They seem to be good loving parents. David has been brilliant at what he does and is making greast strided representing British sport.
Victoria looks like a good, sensible, loving mum to all the kids. I'm too old to be a listener to her music but she made a lot of mazooma doing it...good for her..
The names of their children are up to them and won't make a jot of difference to my life...so I don't care.
I have 3 grandsons...Bryn, Ellis and Dylan. The first two, brothers, have a Welsh dad and the third is named after that dad, my son's best friend ( who is my daughter's partner )
Two of them have Edward as a second name and one has David. Good solid names which they can use later if they need to. A fourth is due this month but we don't know what he'll be yet !
Ted
|
>> A fourth is due this month but we don't know what he'll be yet !
Is there not a clue there. And he should be Ted.
|
|
I have no real problem with Harper - it's the second name the poor kid's been dumped with....all due to parents' randomness.
|
I acquired my third grandson last evening, by coincidence.
I now have one named after a man who fairly recently broke both his ankles, one named after a racing driver who lost both his legs in a crash and one named after a man who broke his shoulder crashing out of a bike race. Thank heavens the time of day had nothing to do with any of them.
Any guesses?
|
Well if they have called one "Alex" after Alex Zanardi, they got the name wrong.
Unless they called it Alessandro, which then makes it a Lady Gaga connection, or Zanardi which is of Beckham standards.
|
|
There was a big debate about the precise form to use and they decided Alex was a good compromise, although Alex Wurz was a bit of a complication.
|
>> I now have one named after a man who fairly recently broke both his ankles,
>> Any guesses?
>>
Sir Stirling Moss?
|
|
Yes - but not the Sir or the Moss. He met the great man at Goodwood last year.
|
This sounds to me like a good name for a car... - R.P.
