Do the terms choni/cani have an equivalent in English?
Cani is the male version and choni is the female version of the term that more or less makes reference to a group of people who are characterized by wearing plenty of jewelry, worrying excessively about their personal appearance, buying clothes in poor taste, super tight, strident colors, fighting with anyone for anything, having a low intellectual level, and not having professional or personal expectations, nor social recognition.
Is there any proper name that is prototypical of this kind of people in English? In Spanish, there are some names that are more common among "cani" and "choni" people, such as "Jessi" or "Yonatan" and we add an article before the proper name when we call a cani/choni person by their names (in English would be something like "the Jessi" or "the Yonatan", does this exist in English?).

Thanks!

Question

Do the terms choni/cani have an equivalent in English?
Cani is the male version and choni is the female version of the term that more or less makes reference to a group of people who are characterized by wearing plenty of jewelry, worrying excessively about their personal appearance, buying clothes in poor taste, super tight, strident colors, fighting with anyone for anything, having a low intellectual level, and not having professional or personal expectations, nor social recognition.
Is there any proper name that is prototypical of this kind of people in English? In Spanish, there are some names that are more common among "cani" and "choni" people, such as "Jessi" or "Yonatan" and we add an article before the proper name when we call a cani/choni person by their names (in English would be something like "the Jessi" or "the Yonatan", does this exist in English?).

Thanks!

Answer

Thank you very much Bill. I've looked for the term "chav" and, in spite of the obvious differences, it is the most accurate option I've heard. However, I have one more question. Are there any proper names that are prototypical when talking about these people when you don't know their names? For example, as I mentioned before, when we tell a story on "chonis", we use to call them Jessica or Jennifer, since they're really common names among that kind of girls. Moreover, to make it more derogatory we add an article in front of our own name (e.g. "la Jenni"), which is grammatically incorrect and quite vulgar, but these people use it a lot. Does anything similar exist in English?

Answer

In terms of normal British English, there is little of this nature.  But within street slang, there are a fair few expressions, for example, "chavs" though this term is not gender specific.