Why aren’t children called Roger any more? I wondered this when reading about the sad death of Sir Roger Bannister. Coincidentally, the evening before, my young daughter had been watching The Great Escape and most of the Englishmen in it seemed to be called Roger. The only time you hear the name is in early episodes of Midsomer Murders, the ones produced before they were forced to have black people being killed in a ludicrous fashion alongside the whites, to demonstrate our commitment to equality.
It does have an awkward connotation with sex — but then it always did, Roger having been a slang word for penis right back to the 17th century. I suppose it has simply drifted out of fashion, along with common decency, emotional continence and heterosexual marriage. The UK website BabyCentre does an annual poll of the top 100 baby names for boys and Roger did not figure at all. Muhammad came first in two out of the last three years. It is a great shame: there is something steadfast and comforting about the name Roger and it has appealing European roots, deriving from the French and before that, old German, hrod — which does in fact mean steadfast. Perhaps nobody wants to be steadfast any more because it is seen as being a boring quality to possess. Ah well, I look forward to the day when parents will no longer have to agonise over what to call their offspring because everybody will be called Muhammad. Apart from the chicks, of course. But even there I have high hopes that Muhammadette will take off.
I don’t think the Italians are looking forward to the day everyone is called Muhammad. Their election results would suggest otherwise. It was, of course, a dog’s breakfast, as Italian elections tend to be (the country being no worse off as a consequence of this tradition).
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