The name game

I am very pleased with the name we chose for our daughter, and I believe my wife agrees. It came to us fairly quickly, and we reached an instant accord regarding its suitability. It is not too common, but not so unusual as to provoke accusations of snobbery or - worse - pretentiousness. To get away with such maverick child labelling you have to be either upper class or a veteran of eighties pop culture.

Two other naming obstacles, around which we skirted with effortless panache, are less well documented. You can't name your child after anyone you have ever known, unless you are certain that you will love the original holder of the title, to a degree that transcends the threat of awkward sycophancy, forever and ever. And you must avoid at all costs using a name already claimed by a friend for their child. This is copying, and will certainly be frowned upon by your friend who may, with some justification, construe your decision as one which dilutes the cherished identity of their beloved. Nobody wants that.

Our daughter's name follows all of these rules and, furthermore, it suits her perfectly. Of course we are bound to perceive the moniker in terms of the person with it that we have known so well for 16 months, making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, being as objective as I can, I do think that its phonetic implications match her character and appearance. We made the right decision.

And so to round two. One again we have been tasked by our own fertility with devising an appellation which meets all of the above requirements while pleasing us and those whose opinions we value. And once again I believe we have come up trumps.

Yet I can't quite shake the feeling that we're suffering from difficult second album syndrome. I've been unable to overcome my fear of telling people our choice. What if others associate the name with an unsavoury celebrity whose attachment to it has passed us by? What if they see it not - as we do - as the paradigm of beauty and elegance with just a bit of an edge but, for example, as the epitome of malevolent evil?

I have no more reason to worry about these possibilities than I did previously. I'm sure, in a couple of years, we'll be as happy with our selection as we are now with its predecessor. But I can't fully commit to it. I think that perhaps we're the victims of our own prior success at naming. We've set the bar very high where previously there wasn't even a bar, if you see what I mean.

This is difficult. I should have just insisted on Smorgasbord and Juxtaposition.