WHAT’S IN A NAME? ASK BENTLEY!
IF history teaches us anything, it is that when large numbers among the population are forced to stay indoors for any length of time, because of bad weather or an epidemic, the result usually is a baby boom nine months later.
Naming a baby is an onerous task, because you literally are creating part of its identity, so it would be wise to choose carefully. Sadly, many people don’t.
UK website choosemycar.com set about looking for children born since 2000 with names associated with cars. Top of the list was Morgan, for both boys and girls.
The rest of the boys’ top 10 were Austin, Rio, Hunter,
Lincoln, Cooper, Aston, Hudson, Prince and Bentley. The girls’ top 10 was rounded out by Alba, Kia, Mercedes, Clio, Lexus, Jazz, Porsche, Aston and Lotus.
All relatively grand so far, since almost all of those are regular names anyway (you might be questioning Kia but as a name, it has its origins in Africa, while the car brand derives from the SinoChinese characters for ‘to arise’ and ‘east Asia’ and is roughly translated as ‘rising from the East’).
Sadly, some people just have to push the envelope way too far. There are boys walking around the UK who are called McLaren, Dodge and Chevy (three of each born since 2000); Wraith and Triumph (6); Healey (11); Noble (22).
Among girls, there are two Triumphs; one Cruz; six Minis and Chevys; 14 Meganes; one Devin; 19 Zafiras; 33 Hunters and 37 Astras.
In the general population of all ages, the most prevalent male name was Austin – there are 117,644 of them in the UK.
Intrigued, I had a look at births for 2019 in Ireland and found 58 Hunters, 37 Coopers, and Austin and Cooper tied on 18.
The most popular among girls was Alba, with 11 births last year.
My own name continues to go out of fashion, with just 24 boys named Philip in 2019, leaving it 214th in the name chart; the year I was born it was at No. 36.
Five baby girls born last year were called Enya, though, and there could be a few more similarly named in that category soon.
Skoda has named its forthcoming fully electric SUV the Enyaq, a combination of the name and the Q identifier already on its Kodiaq, Kamiq and Karoq models.