In praise of peculiar names

It began, as these things often do, in the Births, Deaths and Marriages column of the Times. ‘On 29th February, to Olivia von Wulffen and Rupert Oldham-Reid,’ the announcement read. ‘A daughter, Antigone Elizabeth Anna, sister to Peregrine Yorck von Wulffen and Otto the dog.’ The ad was spotted by journalist Harry Wallop who posted it on social media last week without comment – but plenty of comment would follow, much of it negative. I think that shows a sad lack of imagination. 

The Oldham-Reid von Wulffen family is configured like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five: two girls, two boys and a dog. But each is more strikingly named than plain Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy. They are more the Flamboyant Five, perhaps. Their names are rather wonderful – as well as individually more practical than they may at first appear as an ensemble.

True Antigone – or Tiggy as they apparently intend to call her – is likely to be the only one in her class by that name. But that’s a positive. And her middle names, Elizabeth Anna, are eminently sensible. The worst thing that’s likely to befall her name-wise is mispronunciation; I still wince at the memory of Zoe Ball reading out a listener’s similarly classical name, Persephone, on air as ‘Percy-phone’.

Tiggy’s older brother, Peregrine – which, similarly, the family have apparently shortened to Pip – is a little less sensibly middle-named with Yorck. But ‘no alas poor Yorck’ is required here – I’m sure he’ll grow into it. And PY are great initials.

Although I applaud bold choices for children’s names, I certainly don’t think just anything goes. My rule is that any choice should be recognised as a name: so no Zowie, Moon Unit or Blanket, say. And, call me a pedant, but, for me, while it’s fine to plan to shorten, the full name should go on the birth certificate: so any Alfie should be formally recorded as Alfred, and so on. Antigone’s parents comply on both counts here. 

My own children are adults now. The youngest turned 18 this spring. Having myself been given the most mundane first name possible – the four gospel authors are the benchmark for boring male names – I think I wanted, in naming them, to lean the other way a little, just not too far: we wanted something that would stand apart but not attract derision. 

We went with Alexandra Persephone – her middle name was why I always remember Zoe Ball’s fumble – and then Hector William Laverne and Albert James Valentine. I gather all three as adults are relatively content with their names. I was initially concerned, at least with the boys, that we might have gone too far. In fact our anxiety over the course of their childhoods was more that we hadn’t gone far enough. We would worry that any of their names might become a fad, or be picked up by a royal or a Beckham. And I would scan each year’s updated ‘Top 50 most popular’ list desperate not to see our childrens’ names on it. The most popular, Alexandra, was the only one to dent the outer reaches of that list, though Albert was touted as an outside betting contender for both William and Kate’s boys.

In my own profession, a more striking name is advantageous for allowing one’s byline to stand out. My surname perhaps helped a little in this context to overcome the drawbacks of plain John.  But I have encountered several pairs of journalists with the same name as each other. At one point, for example, there was a Tim Miles on the Evening Standard and a second Tim Miles on the floor above him at the Mail. The risk of this is substantially reduced if you are a Gervase, Alban or Valentine – as a trio of sometime colleagues have been named. 

The last of these, until recently the royal correspondent of the Times, inspired our youngest’s middle name and felt fitting as he was February-born. And on the subject of middle names, I should explain that Laverne was a family tradition from Canada for the eldest male, which my father and grandfather had before me, and which I was under pressure to pass on to my first son. No one seems to know why.

In journalism name circles there appears to be a particularly flourishing class of female writers with a lively first name and a double-barreled or otherwise unusual second, combining to form a memorable whole. The doyenne of these is undoubtedly Sophia Money-Coutts but other notables include Boudicca Fox-Leonard, Lottie Tiplady-Bishop and new discoveries Octavia Sheepshanks and Cecily Snowball. 

Kelvin MacKenzie reputedly thought that double-barrelled names were strictly for the Telegraph and forced George Pascoe-Watson to become simply ‘Pascoe Watson’ during his tenure on the Sun – and he only reverted to using his full name in print after Kelvin had gone. 

We live in an increasingly grey world. Grey is now the colour of choice for cars, much furniture – and even houses as older suburban semis are subject to what has been termed ‘greyification’, The last thing we need is grey names. There are more than enough Olivers and Olivias, Leos and Freyas. Give us more Antigones and Peregrines. 

After his post took off, Wallop himself later qualified that he felt such names add to the gaiety of the nation. I couldn’t agree more. Apart from the perhaps missed opportunity to call their dog ‘von Wuffen’, I commend Antigone’s parents for the boldness of her and her brother’s names. I just hope they live up to them.