Choosing the name for a baby is never child’s play
As Ruth Davidson reveals that her daughter will be called Fionnuala, JAMES TAYLOR senses a growing trend for some unusual monickers
PARENTS up and down the land – and indeed throughout the world – will know the feeling. When picking a name for your son or daughter do you play safe and opt for the traditional? Or do you throw caution to the wind and go for the exotic?
In extremis – and in the excitement of the moment – a few of us might be tempted to conjure up a name that sounds wild and wacky at the time but one which will incur the wrath of your child once he or she goes to school and is teased mercilessly for acquiring an absurd name handed down to them by mum and dad who are desperate to be different?
Ruth Davidson, the feisty leader of the Scottish Conservatives, and her female partner Jen Wilson have been faced with just such a dilemma and yesterday they announced that their daughter, who is expected to be born next month, will be called Fionnuala.
Time will tell how little Fionnuala (pronounced Finn-oo-la) will get on with her name. It sounds pretty enough but I would hazard a guess that it won’t be long before all her friends start calling her Fi, Finn, Fenella or even Oola.
And, poor love, she will get mighty tired of spelling it out each time she has to call her bank, utility firm or mobile phone provider, especially when some of these companies operate call centres in India or Singapore where deciphering the simplest of names seems to take an age.
Fionnuala is an Irish name and in Irish mythology it means “beautiful face”, although according to the baby names website nameberry it also means “white shoulders”. As the story goes, Fionnuala was the daughter of Lir of the Tuatha De Danann but was changed into a swan and cursed by her stepmother to wander the lakes and rivers of Ireland. This went on for 900 years until the curse eventually was broken.
On the mumsnet website there has in the past been discussion about the merits of naming a child Fionnuala – with mixed results. “It’s quite pretentious,” said one mother.
“If you love it, use it. I personally think it is beautiful,” commented another.
WHAT’S clear is that Davidson and Wilson are following a clear pattern set by modern-day parents in turning their backs on tried and tested names, although this shift does not as yet seem to have infiltrated royal circles. After all how much more conventional can you get than calling your children George and Charlotte, as favoured by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Admittedly, choosing the name Louis for their third child marks a slight departure from convention but has more to do with the family’s affection for their murdered relative Lord (Louis) Mountbatten than any wish to be radical.
According to the website Babycentre, the top 20 names for boys in 2018 now include Theo, Ethan, Lucas and Logan. And girls names growing in popularity are Ava, Mia, Maya, Layla and Freya.
Of course there have always been trail-blazers in the naming of children. Back in the 1980s Bob Geldof and his wife Paula Yates went out of their way to pick three of the most absurd names for their daughters: Peaches (whose middle name was Honeyblossom), Pixie and Fifi Trixibelle.
Few eyebrows were raised because the Geldofs seemed to thrive on, well, raising eyebrows. And yet six years ago Sir Bob had the audacity to criticise Peaches – who died in 2014 – for calling her own son Astala Dylan Willow Cohen-Geldof.
“Yuck!” he said. “What’s he going to be called in school? Ass? Stella? It’s a girl’s name, let’s face it.”
Ah, but perhaps that’s the point. To be gender neutral is to be in tune with the modern zeitgeist, we are persistently being told, and so gender neutral names – such as Alex, Charlie or Andy – are bound to increase in popularity as we strive to negotiate the horrors of gender politics.
Speaking of politics, those on the Left who loathe anything that smacks of Britain’s imperial past will always shy away from regal names such as Henry, Edward, George or Elizabeth. Jeremy Corbyn’s sons, for example, are called Seb, Thomas and Benjamin, the latter named after the Labour leader’s father.
But at least in this country we have free choice. I was in Budapest recently and got talking to a young man called Daniel, who works as a tour guide and is married to a woman from Poland. He told me their son was about to celebrate his second birthday. “What is his name?” I asked. ‘Well, we wanted to call him Tomasz, which is a Polish name, but it was not on the list,” said Daniel. “What list?” I said. Daniel then explained that in Hungary there is a list of some 3,000 pre-approved names. If a name is not on the list you need to embark on a lengthy application process. All applications are considered by a body named somewhat randomly as the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Daniel and his wife opted for Alexander instead and who can blame them?
Something similar operates in Iceland where the Icelandic Naming Committee maintains an official register of approved names. Established in 1991 this committee is tasked with deciding whether a given name not previously used in the country is suitable for integration in Iceland’s language and culture.
Jon Gnarr, a former mayor of Reykjavik, famously fought against the committee after he was not allowed to drop Kristinsson from his name despite his desire to disassociate himself from his father, who had a bad reputation and one of which Gnarr did not wish to be reminded.
Gnarr pointed out that if Robert Mugabe moved to Iceland he would be allowed to keep his nonconforming name but that native Icelanders were not allowed to have non-conforming names. Eventually in 2015 Gnarr won his case after a lengthy legal battle.
Additionally he was not permitted to name his daughter Camilla after her grandmother and instead had to opt for Kamilla because C is not part of the Icelandic alphabet.
The only rule here in Britain is that names which contain obscenities, numerals or misleading titles are likely to be rejected by the registering officer, although it’s unclear how often this happens.
It’s a good job Jacob Rees-Mogg isn’t an Icelander. Given his habit for picking bizarre names for his children he would surely fall foul of the committee’s rules. His latest sprog, born in July, is called Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher. Sixtus is a Roman name shared by no fewer than five Popes and which means “polished”.
LITTLE Sixtus follows on the heels of his five siblings, whose full names (Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary Anne Charlotte Emma, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam and Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius) might just cause problems when they have to fill in their council tax forms.
The Conservative MP for North East Somerset has been described as the “honourable member for the early 20th century” and readily admits that he has never changed a nappy but it has also been noted that he announced the birth of Sixtus on Instagram and immediately received 3,000 “likes”.
Ruth Davidson has not explained why she and her partner have decided to call their “bump” Fionnuala. And the great thing is that they do not need to. They like the name. It’s as simple as that.