The High Court Judge test

Now, I'm aware that this post will tell you all a bit too much about my upbringing and expectations, but there it is. I have utterly no desire for the Noodle to be a lawyer but somehow this whole lawyer thing is in there, and I can't quite manage to expel it. Despite the fact that we have no lawyers in our family, not one, never, ever, ever and quite possibly never will.

When we were expecting the baby, as yet nameless, we thought of many names. We thought of names from our families, names from literary theorists and philosophers and favourite books. We thought of names off the telly and names we remembered fondly from primary school. A lot of the names we thought of became redundant after the ultra sound when we discovered that Rosie or Raphaela would not be appropriate. The Noodle is pleased he was not a girl, because he would have preferred Lily or Lucy for himself (herself, I mean, I suppose - not that he's alone there, thousands of parents have picked Lily and Lucy in recent years, that's for sure. Pretty names, too, but not ones we thought of).

So we got to a point where we had a handful of names. Some of which we look back at and think 'heavens to betsy, we didn't have sleep deprivation at the time, what freakish anomaly could explain us even considering that name'? But most of them were OK. And we subjected all the names to the High Court Judge test, which is what you have to think about if your kid might grow up to want to be a High Court Judge, and how would he or she feel about being called Justice Whatever. So Justice Fifi Trixiebelle is a tough one, perhaps lacking in the necessary gravitas. It's not to be conservative, some pretty wild names sound damn fine after 'Justice' but some just sound a little uncomfortable together.

The other professions we road tested were author and foreign correspondent, which also probably tells you a bit too much about our general attitudes to the world. A lot of unpleasant stuff was going on in the US at the time, so we had to try out all the names followed by 'Washington' in an ABC sort of voice. It's a good test. The ABC website should promote it. Plus it makes you say the name lots of times in a row, so you can see if you get used to it. And sometimes your mouth saying the name makes your mind just boggle.

All of which is to say, it's very exciting that people are having babies, and I can't wait to meet them and find out their names.