¿Cómo te llamas? and other stuff.

Mumsnet has produced a list of the 20 poshest baby names around at the moment: 

1. Horace 
2. Hector 
3. Millicent 
4. Django 
5. Merlin 
6. Tristan 
7. Inigo 
8. Tybalt 
9. Cosmo 
10. Merville 
11. Algernon 
12. Araminta 
13. Jago 
14. Lucious 
15. Mungo 
16. Crispin 
17. Cuthbert 
18. Octavia 
19. Tuppence 
20. Otterly 

(What Is Mumsnet anyway? Wikipedia says: "Mumsnet is one of the UK's largest websites for parents. It hosts forums where users share peer-to-peer advice and information on parenting, products and many other issues. Mumsnet also has a Bloggers Network with 5,000 registered bloggers and a network of 180 local sites run in partnership with local editors". Apparently someone had a "disastrous" first family holiday with one year old twins and on returning to the UK got together with friends to build the website. 

Golly gosh! Whatever did I do without such a network when my children were small? Well, actually, I got together with a bunch of friends, physically got together, meeting in each other's houses and swopping notes, baby clothes and theories. So I think we already had a Mumset. Had internet existed then we might have gone online as well! Who knows? 

And what constitutes a disastrous holiday? Our first "family" holiday included such delights as our one year old son crawling round and round the tent until it got dark and a lot of walking up and down the beach, bent over holding the hands of the aforementioned one year old so that he could practise his walking: a great way to get a suntanned back! Was it disastrous? I don't think so. The photos show the three of us smiling anyway.) 

Some of the names on that list are just plane silly. I have commented before that Tuppence is truly NOT a name but a nickname. What sort of name is Otterly? Otterly ridiculous. Lucious looks like a misspelling: Luscious or Lucius? Tristan and Tybalt and Merlin and such like smack of literary aspirations. Even Cuthbert for that matter, but only referring back to the Bash Street Kids. 

However, children are being given these names. At a gathering of small people to which I accompanied our smallest granddaughter recently I came across a small Hector (no hero this one but a small bully who pushed other children over!) and a Caspian - maybe his parents were C. S. Lewis fans. 

From the Independent, here is another list, this time the ten worst baby names: 

1. Elizabreth 
2. Mhavryck (Pronounced Maverick) 
3. Aliviyah (Pronounced 'Olivia') 
4. Baby (Author's note: 'Yup. That's the name') 
5. Little Sweetmeat (Author's note: 'Swear to God') 
6. Nevaeh (Note: Read it backwards) 
7. Danger 
8. North West 
9. Harley-Quinn 
10. Beberly 

There you go! 

I was thinking about names before I came across these lists. My friend Colin has been commenting in his blog about certain female Spanish names. There are an awful lot of religious names: Pilar ( the pillar of salt), Asunción (the Assumption - think of the name Assumpta), Concepción Imaculada (the Immaculate Conception), Belén (actually one of my favourite names - it means Bethlehem) Cruz (the cross), Dolores (the pains of Christ) and undoubtedly many more, without mentioning all the Marías and Martas you come across.  

In England we do that less. instead we turn our daughters into a garden: Primrose, Rose, Rosemary, Pansy, Daisy (originally a diminutive of Margaret but now a name in its own right), Poppy, Violet, Lily, Holly and Ivy, although that last one is a little dated and I've not heard of any little Ivys. Clover and Buttercup tend to be reserved for cows and horses at present but you never know. 

In the meantime, our daughter's latest bump is being referred to by his (or possibly her) siblings as Otto. Goodness knows what odd name will be bestowed on him (or her) when he (or she) emerges later his year!