What's in a name.... Part Deux

Today, the school published the list of students receiving awards at the end of term awards ceremony. Naturally, The Boy and The Girl are both on the list – well they take after their mother of course! 

But more interesting than reading who won what, is who’s called what. A name is such an important thing and the odd poorly thought out name combination can lead to years of schoolyard-hell as my old friend Valerie Davies found out when she spent her formative years with VD beautifully chain stitched to her PE kit, much to the amusement of her classmates and visiting netball teams.

Another friend’s brother is called Piran, a Cornish name, St Piran being, apparently, the patron saint of tin miners. He said it ruined his life as he spent his entire time listening to people say ‘what?’, then having to spell it, explain its origins and so on. He now calls himself Pete.

Although the huge majority of names on the awards list were perfectly normal it did throw up a few interesting ones, some of which were a reminder of what was on the tv or in the pop charts in the late 80s and early 90s, some of which use a bit of ‘individual’ spelling, one of my pet hates. I mean, why Izzabelle and not Isabel, or Rebekka instead of Rebecca or Aleksandra instead of Alexandra? There was even an Indya for heaven’s sake. The name only has five letters. Is it really necessary to change one?

There were two Summers, one Summer-Louise and one Hollee-Summer (thus incorporating two of my pet hates, misspelling and seasons), three Nikitas (Elton John or the film, take your pick), a smattering of Tiegans (Dr Who) and two Crystals (Dallas maybe? Or Crystal Gayle?). There was one Giverny (I’d like to think Monet’s Garden but more likely the song by Chris Rea) and one Robson (Green maybe? He was pretty big in the 90s).

Our proximity to Wales provided two Anghareds (a name I love to be fair), a Rhydian (most likely not after the former X Factor contestant) and then there’s Deanna with a TRIPLE barrelled surname (possibly veh, veh posh but more likely her mother is unsure of her parentage so is covering all bases). On the ‘I made this up’ front is Taya, Sharra, Kahlan (from the Terry Goodking fantasy series maybe?), Tanisha (clearly from the West Wiltshire ghetto), a Sanchia (although there is a sleb journo called Sanchia too) and my personal favourites, Zoeena and Poppyella! There are the twins, Cima and Rima (why?) a boy called Izzy – not short for anything – Mica-Louise (maybe after Mica Paris who was having a bit of success in the 90s) and Finian (who may or may not have a rainbow).

I’m a lover of some older traditional names but Euphemia is possibly a step too far, Mahalia’s parents were probably left wing hippies who spent too much time bemoaning the departure of the Grateful Dead whilst smoking weed and banging on about human rights and poor Honeysuckle, god, how do you live with a name like that?

For pure chavness there are Sade-Tia (I went to a Sade concert and she was shite), Eboni (who isn’t black) and Siantelle (possibly a chav of welsh origins). To be honest, they could all have doctorates from Oxford but their names will shut more doors than they open.

But my absolute favourite of favourites is Regyqueen. Yes dear reader, I have found someone called Regyqueen but to be fair, he/she has a very foreign sounding surname so I’ll let him/her off.

So, if you are having a baby soon, or know someone who is, tell them that it may seem like a good idea to name your child after a singer/soapstar/reality tv star/season/plant/tree/from the combination of 5 consonants and 3 vowels from last week’s edition of Countdown, but the poor bugger has to carry that around for the rest of their lives and if it makes people groan, assume a poor level of literacy, snigger or just plain laugh out loud, well, it’s just not that fair.