Once, in another life as a showbiz reporter in London, a friend put me and a colleague on a nightclub guest list.
Deciding my pal Derek Brown, who hailed from Fife and had trained at DC Thomson, needed a funkier name for the trendy China White, he was down as “Derek Au de Latte”.
I can still remember the doorman looking from the list to my pal. Then back again.
We were both thinking the same thing: “Who’d fall for Au de Latte? We should have stuck with Brown.”
The doorman then squinted and, looking bewildered, said to my friend: “Derek? Who’s called Derek?”.
Then he let us in.
I remembered this story when a pregnant pal said she was looking for inspiration for baby names and did I have any suggestions?
No one’s called Derek any more, I lamented over a coffee.
Imagine a toddler affectionately nicknamed Del Boy though. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
Or Brian. When was the last baby you met called Brian?
Strangely they are names that suit grown ups and it’s hard to imagine a baby Derek.
From history to Hollywood – baby names are everywhere
We looked up news articles and discovered the most popular baby names in Scotland for 2021 were Olivia and Jack.
Other top girl names in Scotland included Emily, Isla, Freya, and Ella – and for boys, Noah, Leo, Oliver, and Harris.
I love the return of old school Scottish names – like Hamish or best of all, Jock.
It makes me think of the great grandfather I never knew, Jock Reilly, who left Dundee and lost his life in the Second World War when a bomb struck London.
My pregnant pal says she’s getting some cracking ideas from watching film credits.
There is no one like an American floor assistant to guarantee a sprinkling of showbiz to a names list, although I told her to bin the idea of Wallander.
He’d get sat on at school.
Big character inspired one of our baby names
She asked how I came up with the boys’ names and I couldn’t attach a particular story to Monty or Chester.
But when it came to Guthrie, I remembered the exact moment we agreed on the name.
Lorraine Kelly had invited us to a party to celebrate her daughter Rosie’s 21st birthday in the Ferry.
It was a sunny day and in the garden, my husband introduced me to a chap he knew who was a few years older than us.
I was holding Chester, a round ball of a baby at six months of age and this man – resplendent in a beautiful suit which was a muted, greyish tweed in the finest, thinnest material – looked at him with a glint in his eyes.
“He loves babies,” his wife said.
She’d taught me at primary school and remembered me drawing wedding dress designs when she announced she was to marry.
To me, as a nine year old, she was Cinderella.
“He’ll be wanting cuddle,” she said.
And so I handed a newly fed, happy Chester to the man, who bounced this round baby up and down and then…Chester was sick all over his gorgeous suit.
Of course I was mortified and offered to pay for dry cleaning but the man was ever so good humoured and said it was his fault entirely.
As we walked away from, Jamie said: “Cool guy is Guthrie Batchelor. He was a brilliant rugby player. Cool name too. If we have a third son, how about Guthrie?”
And lo, a year or so later, it came to pass.
One new name bartender, hold the ‘l’
As for me, I’m often asked if I’m named after the brandy – to which I say “no, no, no”.
Then I regale people with the actual story.
You might remember the Scottish singer Lena Martell, most famous for her chart-topper One Day At A Time.
She was big around the time I was born and that’s what inspired my name – albeit with just the one ‘l’.
And while that’s true, I read recently that Lena’s real name was Helen Thomson.
Deciding she needed a more showbiz-sounding title, she found herself at a bar one day, spotted a bottle of Martell brandy and thought “that’ll do”.
And so, I suppose I am indeed named after a bottle of booze.
Maybe that’s a better story.
I love that the names we carry all our lives can be the result of one random moment in time.
If the bar where Lena looked had been stocked differently, I might even have been Pernod.
If you have a story to tell about your name or someone you know, I’d love to hear from you.
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