Growing up, "kev" was a synonym for chav, townie, ned. At my waaaaaay-over-privileged rugby-playing school, we called football "kevball".

Where I grew up, before chavs they were called 'Car Park Kevs' (though in my wife's town they were called 'Barrys'

Even that meaning of "Kevin" has changed.

Harry Enfield's Kevin the Teenager has very middle class parents (for those not from the UK we regard "middle class" as describing a much wider social group than say in the USA where it might be based on income. It's basically not working class and not a member of the aristocracy. Could be a QC, a CEO or school teacher.)

The earlier meaning was more pejorative and something closer to a being a "chav". Like chavs in the early 00s were supposed to wear fake Burberry check products, kevs were supposed to wear white socks and black shoes. I have no idea why.

The American middle class is pretty broad, too. MDs are middle class, as are contractors and most, if not all, office workers; there's a divide between upper middle class and lower middle class, however.

> for those not from the UK we regard "middle class" as describing a much wider social group than say in the USA where it might be based on income. It's basically not working class and not a member of the aristocracy. Could be a QC, a CEO or school teacher.

I don't know what a QC is, but a CEO of a non-Fortune 500 company would probably be upper middle class, and a school teacher would be lower middle class unless they're in a very expensive private school. I don't know that it's strictly based on income, necessarily, as much as how much independence the job provides; whether it's a job or a career, in other words.

A QC is Queen’s Council[1]

Actually your definition is not that dissimilar to what we’d understand too. I think it’s not too different to white collar vs blue collar. Attitude to education fits in there somewhere too.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Counsel