What's in a name?

Anyone who's ever had to come up with a name, whether for a pet or a child or a website or a business, will know that it's a burden of responsibility. And with the due date of second child fast approaching I find myself yet again in a position of said responsibility. 

Now obviously I don't want to give my child a crap name. I don't want to give my child a name she hates, or feels doesn't suit her. I don't want to give my child a name that he has to spell out every time he identifies himself (with our names being Antony and Catherine, this is close to our hearts). And - although this one is kind of hard to police - I especially don't want to accidentally give my child a name that means something rather different in another language.

But I've also got some less obvious requirements of the name we choose. It has to be easy to pronounce phonetically, lest the child be a globe-trotting adventurer. It has to have an initial that is different from the rest of its immediate family, which rules out anything beginning with A, C and F. And ideally that initial has to be B, D, E or G in case it becomes a famous composer who wants to use the initials of its family members as a musical leitmotif in its magnum opus. (I'll go to H at a push).

But even having thought vaguely about this for nine months (more if you count the first child's gestation), we don't have a definite name yet. And in about a month's time there will be a baby. And we have six weeks after the baby's arrival to register its birth, which necessitates a name. Oh, there are names we like, there are names which are lovely, but I have this niggling feeling that there's the perfect name out there and we JUST HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF IT YET. 

First time around, the stars collided. Frederick was the name of husband's great-uncle, which meant family were happy with our choice - but it also happened to be the name of the swoonsome lead male character in Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart books, who I had a bit of a crush on. That was easy. But no other swashbuckling hero has made himself known to me recently, and our literary input has dwindled to the Evening Standard, the occasional Heat magazine and the BBC Six O'Clock News, which means the options are pretty much reduced to Boris, Harrystyles or George Alagiah. Not good.

I'm all for something out of the ordinary. We've looked for inspiration to Shakespeare, kings of England and Thomas the Tank Engine; we've considered everything from Athelstan to Percy. The musical world is an obvious place to look for unusual and not-so-unusual delights, but Sergei (Prokofiev) is apparently vetoed, despite the fact the child may yet arrive on the 60th anniversary of the composer's death. (Which also happens to be the 60th anniversary of Stalin's death, but I'm not so cool with the idea of naming a child after him). I'm quite annoyed that popstress Dido is about to make her comeback because Dido was on my list of cool, criteria-fitting names, but I can't be seen to name my child after Britain's most bland singer-songwriter even if it's not true. If I'm going to name a child after any singer it'll be Thom Yorke, but then my child will be called Thomas Cook and let's face it, if you're going to face a lifetime of being teased for having the same name as a brand, that's probably not the one.

And here we are, weeks from decision time, with a list of names that looks pretty woeful. So please, if you can throw some inspiration our way, we'd be mighty obliged. Otherwise, we might end up with a child named Toyota MR2, and that would be a sad day.