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| Funny Baby Names List |
Celebrities, as so often, are the true culprits. When Bob Geldof and Paula Yates called their children Pixie, Fifi Trixibelle and Peaches in the 1980s, everyone laughed. Now they would probably be praised for their restraint. It's hard enough for children of successful parents to make their own way in the world, without being named after soft fruit or household pets. And yet celebrities continue to give their children the silliest names.
They get their revenge in the end. Keith Richards's daughter was christened Dandelion, and now calls herself Angela. David Bowie's son was christened Zowie and now calls himself Joe. What they call their fathers is anyone's guess.
How much simpler it used to be, and not just in the UK. Until 1970 the names of French children had to be chosen from an approved list issued by the Ministry of the lnterior. Jean-Paul or Jean-Luc - no problem. But Paul-Jean or Luc-Jean - forget it. Foreign names were a particular norm. It's pleasing to think that, somewhere in the dark and forgotten recesses of the French penal system, there may still be men-and women chained to walls who once dared to call their children Mario or Dave.
So, what you do call your little precious? Pocket-sized paperbacks of Babies' Names will offer several hundred to choose from, but once you have discounted the ones that sound ridiculous, the ones everyone else seems to have, the ones you can't use because you have always hated someone with that name, the annoying Irish ones no one knows how to spell, the ones that recall previous boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives, the ones that sound poncy or namby or thuggish or dim, the ones so out of fashion no one will ever use them again, and Dave, that doesn't leave an awful lot.
Indeed, if you can stretch to a short list of six you will be doing well. Some parents just end up with 'Emily', remember they have a boy, and have to start again from scratch.
The crucial thing, as you compile your shortlist, is that the name should pass the Playground Test. In two or three years' time you will be in a playground with your infant, who won't be doing what it's told. And you will have to shout, 'Aurora, stop doing that!' And people will snigger snigger or snort. One or two will have coughing fits. Aurora is one of several names that fail the Playground Test. So do Nigella, LaToya and Arundhati (if you're Scottish). For boys, try and avoid Rock, Clarence, Reginald and Speck Wildhorse. For fear of offending too many readers, I shall go no further, but you know what I am talking about.
More problematic, I'm afraid, are the vagaries of fashion. Names drift in and out, dulled by familiarity and then rediscovered by new generations of desperate parents. I have known an awful lot of Simons and Stephens and Saraha and Lucys in my life - of these, only Lucy still seems to have any currency. A few years ago, in my sheltered comer of north London, there was a sudden surge of Felixes. Oliver has been and gone and come back, and may have gone again, for all I know. There are truckloads of Finlays, and more Phoebes than can ever have been the plan. We know several Albies and Alfies, but no little Nigels. Are there any little Nigels? Anywhere? To find out more, you can check out Funny Baby Names List.