I’m always fascinated when the ‘most popular names’ lists are revealed each year (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
As Shakespeare’s Juliet once famously pondered, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’
And while that may be true, it certainly doesn’t feel like it when you’re a parent-to-be, rifling through endless books, trying to pick a name for your unborn child.
It’s the first label you give to your child and, something parents are painfully aware of, the thing that usually gives the first impression of them to other people. Rightly or wrongly, a Jane conjures up a very different image to a Clementine, as does a Barnaby to a Wayne.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always known my mum hated her name. My grandad, part-Irish, part-Italian, all Geordie, was extremely traditional and had insisted she be called after his wife, her mum. Constance.
She couldn’t bear just how formal, how serious, how old-fashioned it sounded. It just wasn’t her. It was made only worse by the fact she was the only person she knew – bar my grandma, of course – called it.
I remember her telling us that she’d dread it being called out while she waited in the doctor’s surgery, so much so that she eventually asked them to change it on her records.
In my whole life, I’ve never known a single person call her Constance. Not once. While her friends know her as Connie, our family call her Con. Either one, she feels suits her more.
That’s why she was determined, when she had me and my sister, we’d have names that would blend in, names no one would comment on. Regular, common, two-a-penny names.
Sarah, having appeared in the top 100 most popular girl’s names from the year 1904 until 2018, was the most popular name in the year I was born. I was never going to stand out in a crowd. In fact, in a previous job, there were three of us Sarahs, all sat on the same desk.
They played it equally safe with my sister, Laura.
I didn’t hate my name, admittedly. It was just a bit… blah. A bit nothing.
I always used to imagine what I would be like if I’d be called something more exciting or exotic – I loved the name Scarlett, back before it became the nom du jour it is now, during my teens and used to conjure up the person I’d be if my parents had opted for that, rather than plain old Sarah.
We called my bump Arlo right until I gave birth (Picture: Sarah Whiteley)
Maybe that’s why I’m always fascinated when the ‘most popular names’ lists are revealed each year. I love seeing which names are coming into and going out of style, which ones are in danger of going ‘extinct’ and what celebrities have influenced the list.
This week, the list came out and it appears Sophia, Lily and Olivia are the top three most popular girl’s names, while Muhammad, Noah and Theo are the trio topping the boy’s list, according to BabyCentre.
It’s funny to see my little boy’s name up there in the popularity stakes – in the year he was born, Theo was only the 26th most popular name, his official name Theodore was way down at 55.
And for a long time, he wasn’t even going to be a Theodore. From the minute my husband Tom and I found out we were having a baby boy at my 12-week scan, his name was our main topic of conversation. We literally went from the hospital to Waterstones, bought a baby name book, then headed straight to a restaurant to start pouring over it.
The pressure was intense – there were literally so many options. I loved Greyson, but Tom vetoed it. He preferred Charlie, I pointed out we already knew two Charlies. We bandied around Blake, Dylan, Ben and Dan.
Eventually, we narrowed down our options to two. Theodore or Arlo. And despite it completely confusing my mam (there was a clear look of bafflement on her face as she whispered to me, ‘Is that from Star Wars?’), we decided to call our new baby Arlo.
It was different, but not completely out-there; we both liked the sound of it when you said it outloud, the ‘O’ on the end giving it a nice ring and the fact it was so short seemed to fit nicely with our two-syllable surname.
So that’s what we called my bump for the next two trimesters that we then measured our life in. That was, right until I gave birth. Looking at our teeny tiny baby who was wailing loudly at being pulled from the womb where he’d been so comfortable, we decided we’d go for Theodore instead.
It wasn’t so much that he didn’t look like an Arlo. I mean, realistically, he looked like a baby.
But we suddenly realised that Arlo couldn’t be shortened.
If we called him Arlo, that was it, he was stuck with it. But if he was Theodore, he could change things up a bit. He could be Theo to his friends, Theodore if he ended up having an incredibly important job. I suddenly fell in love with him being a Grandad Teddy when he was older.
Maybe he’d have the chance to make his own label, to a certain extent, out of the one we’d given him? So that’s how we picked our first baby’s name.
Will he like it? I have no idea. At five, he has expressed no views on it whatsoever. That may change over the years – maybe he’ll be like my mum and detest it. Or maybe, like me, it will have become so common, he’ll wish we’d have gone for something different.
I guess, as a parent, I have no control over that. Like most things concerning your children, you can only do your best.
Of course, people choose their children’s names for all different reasons – there can be family names, names which mean something to them, names they’ve always loved, names of people they admire.
But how much does it really shape them as a person? I look at Theo now and try to picture him as an Arlo. I honestly can’t.
But then, I can’t imagine him as anything else in any way. Because unlike his name, he is completely unique.
So maybe Shakespeare’s Juliet was right after all. Maybe we could have called him anything and he would still be the funny, cheeky, silly, clever little boy he is today.
Maybe there really is nothing in a name.
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I’m always fascinated when the ‘most popular names’ lists are revealed each year.
