View Message

This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

[Opinions] Oswald
Is quite loaded with associations. For all the good associations, you have Lee Harvey Oswald, and, moreso here in the UK, Oswald Moseley. Moseley was a fascist, an unpleasant person in his personal life, and not a nice fellow. I've come across/heard of a couple of younger Oswalds/people who considered naming their children Oswald (especially in a town near me which has got very much on board with the weird-recent-middle/upper-class-quiet-UKIP-following of the last few years, and does seem a haven for closet bigots). Without exception, they've all been fascist/UKIP/BNP/Daily-Malicious-reading/bigoted/prejudiced-type families, if relatively reticent about it. The mother of a young Oswald was recently in our weekly paper's name'em-and-shame'em court proceedings sum-up for GBH against a Muslim teacher at her son's school. My friend works at that school and I know the mother. She is not a nice lady. In our area that kind of thing is very rare and does make local news. Ultimately, it's a name I've always associated with fascism, and which has been associated with British fascism since Moseley's day. I don't think it's an obscure association either. Most uses of the name seem to be for rather than despite of. So yeah, I hate the association and I do think it's going to attract judgement. I'd judge it in real life. As a name, I really don't like the sound of it either. I think it's in the phlegmy-snotty dorky category, along with Dwayne and Rupert and Wayne and Wallace and so forth. Ew.Ruby does not appeal to me. It's a little moll-ish. It's not awful, but I do think it wouldn't be out of place in some terrible Sin-City-like film.

This message was edited 3/15/2014, 1:09 PM

Archived Thread - replies disabled
vote up1

Replies

I'm from the US, and never heard of Moseley. But if someone here would use Oswald, they would be either very brave for using a (hopefully family) name with such a negative connotation, or very dumb for using it because of Lee Harvey Oswald. Going by the name alone, I don't like the sound of it.
vote up1
Oh yes, I once read a biography of Diana Mitford, who was married to Oswald Moseley. I had forgotten about that connection completely!
vote up1
I agree with you. I associate the name with Oswald Moseley too and have always considered it unusable because of that. I had no idea some people in the UK were actually using it though!
vote up1