What's in a Name?

Baby names are always in the news and no more so than this week, with the naming of George Alexander Louis, His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.  There was a lot of media speculation about what the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would call their bundle of joy.  There continues to be analysis of the name and people pontificating over their choice.

Celebrities like the Beckhams have followed a trend of famous people giving their children unusual names.  Recently, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian named their daughter North.  Quite nice until you realise that she will take her fathers Surname.  There were sections of my family who were not happy with the middle name that was given to my little brother.

It seems that all of us, from princes to paupers, are scrutinised by what we call our offspring.  It is the first thing, other than DNA, that we bestow on them.  We hadn't given much thought to what we were going to call our baby until the day he arrived.  In our defence, we thought that we still had two months to go before making the decision.  We had a girl's name in the bag but as we didn't know what gender our baby was we needed a boy's name too.

We spent the early part of labour going through the alphabet trying to find a name starting with each letter, that we both liked.  We skipped Q, X, Y and Z.  By the time he was born we had chosen a first and second name for our little man.  The following day, in my first act of fatherhood, I registered the birth and named our son.  I know that I could have waited but we didn't know at that point if he would survive the trauma of being born prematurely and we wanted him to have a name.

He did survive and, looking back at our short list of names, we definitely made the right choice.  He fits his name well.  But does it make that much difference?  Shakespeare's thoughts on the matter in Romeo and Juliet would suggest not.

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Does it really matter what we call our children?  As parents we love them unconditionally, no matter what they are called, even when they are royally winding us up.  There is their future well being to think about, but other than that, What's in a name?