Gasps were heard around the Conservative party conference on Tuesday when leadership candidate Robert Jenrick revealed his daughter’s middle name: Thatcher.
With this in mind, we asked readers to share unusual names that they had themselves or had given their children. Here are some of your responses.
‘My mother refused to talk to me for two days after we named our son’
My youngest son is named Indiana. Yes, as in Jones. My husband is Welsh and he wanted a name that was indicative of “an intrepid Welshman”. We were watching an Indiana Jones film with our other two children. My husband turned to our son Finn, who was two, and said: “What do you think about the name Indiana?” And Finn said: “Yeah!” And that was it. Indiana loves his name. But my mother was horrified and said, “You can’t possibly call a child Indiana!” and refused to talk to me for two days. She definitely got over it, and he’s the apple of her eye. Our son is now 19, and has lived up to his namesake. We still haven’t met a single other Indiana. Sabina Regan, 58, London
‘The only other Cloudesleys are 19th-century academics and cricketers’
My son, born this year, is named Cloudesley. It seems to be a very unusual first name indeed, especially in this century. The main point of inspiration for the name was Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, a naval officer who lived from 1650-1707. He is actually most famous for wrecking his fleet in the Scilly Isles due to a miscalculation of longitude at sea – but we leave this bit out when we explain the name. I trained as a naval historian and was, for a time, curator of maritime history at the National Maritime Museum.
My wife and I always found the name to be a delight, totally at odds with the historical figure and his fate. It conjures up atmospheric imagery. The only other people with the first name Cloudesley that we can find information about seem to be 19th-century academics and cricketers. For many years, “Cloudesley” was how we would refer to our hypothetical future child: “one day, when we have a Cloudesley …” When our son was born, we knew it had to be Cloudesley. Curiously, two months before he was born, I saw a segment about the rarity of the name on QI: I nearly wrote in to tell them that the world now has another Cloudesley in it! Joshua Newton, London
‘People assume I’m some kind of Dutch aristocrat’
My last name Lyne de Ver is a mix of my dad’s English surname Lyne meaning waterway or lake, and my mum’s surname Ver. She is a Hungarian refugee who came to England when she was 12 and apparently Ver in Hungarian means blood. Cheery. My unmarried parents decided to put their names together when I was born. I always get comments on it – usually people assuming I’m some kind of Dutch aristocrat. I actually have decidedly working class origins, albeit creative parents who added a fancy “de” in the middle. My parents did then marry, and divorced. I decided to keep the name when I married, so now only my mum and I have the name – I assume we’re the only ones in the world with it, which I love. Jessica Lyne de Ver, 42, Godalming
‘We named our daughter after a small and noisy bird’
When our daughter, Matilda Wren Harrison, was born in November 2015, we had a hard time choosing her name. We consulted loads of baby name books. My wife’s a teacher, and she didn’t want her to have the same name as one of her students. So we just decided, let’s see what she looks like. And she just looked like a Matilda. As for her middle name, we chose Wren based purely on the fact that she was a small and very noisy bird. I’ve always been into ornithology and the prophecy has been fulfilled – she’s been very chatty since she was 14 months old. Chris Harrison, 41, Stalybridge
‘I’ve never met another Reeve’
My parents intended to name me Ryan, regardless of whether I was a boy or a girl. Friends of theirs had their baby days before I was born and used the name Ryan. My mother insisted on a short, “R” name and thought about the actor Christopher Reeve, who was then playing Superman. So Reeve it was. I’ve never met another Reeve, although I’m complimented on my name often. I always enjoyed having an unusual name. As a kid, occasionally I’d be teased about it, but everyone was teased about something or other. Many of my female classmates were named Jennifer, which is a lovely name, but it must be odd in its own way to share your name with so many others in your generation. Reeve, 45, Pennsylvania
‘I’m named after a Baywatch character’
People often look at me blankly when I say my name in my broad Yorkshire accent. I’ve had friends repeat it after me in the Queen’s English, as if it has to be translated, and it causes so much confusion at Starbucks that I give a fake name. I’ve often been asked whether if it’s short for something else – depending on my mood, I’ll sometimes say Shaunifer or Shaniqua. The truth is that I’m named after a Baywatch character Shauni McClain. Yes, my dad chose it. Shauni Sanderson, 34, Leeds
‘We didn’t want the name to die out’
We were scratching our heads for a name for our newborn son. When his brother visited from uni, where he was studying English literature, he left us without helping resolve the problem. However, on the train back, he texted: “Got it … Soren”, after Søren Kierkergaard, who he was reading at the time. We all loved it, although we wanted an English version of the name, so we pronounce it without the accent on the “o”. Online, we found it was one of “five names dying out that didn’t deserve to”, so we stuck with it. Mark, Hampshire
