What's in a name?

It's no laughing matter when you're called Bottom or Balls, explains John Hind in the first of three pieces on names. Illustration by Spike Gerrell

Marshall McLuhan declared that "the name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers". So it's surprising how oblivious people are to the apparent peculiarity of their surnames. "I've never found anything funny about mine," says Professor Crank of Ruislip; and Mrs Bottom of Darfield, Yorkshire, agrees: "I never really thought about Bottom before I got married."

However, like the sins, the names of the father are visited upon the sons, and Mrs Bottom admits that "our son Alan's got rid of his. He got a lot of rag for 'Bottom' at school, although we never went into the full details with him. He'd just tell us that when he had sons and daughters, he wouldn't want them to go through the same Bottom jokes. Then Alan was in the police force, and Copper Bottom was no fun at all. At first, he wanted to take the surname of a girlfriend and become a Finn. We didn't like the sound of that. So I was glad when he said 'I'll be Jameson' - his father is James Bottom, so he's James's son, see?"

"I always tell people, 'I married into Balls - I wasn't born Balls'," explains Julia Balls of Thetford . "There's a lot of Balls in Norfolk. At one point, I wanted to call my daughter Ophelia Balls. I've mentioned it to her since, and she's said she would've killed me. A lot of Balls have dropped the S. But what's funnier is my aunt's surname: it's Cock - or rather it was. She added S."

"Here in Bristol, there's more Gays than anywhere," calculates Dr A Gay. "I get titters. Men, it embarrasses. The garage down the road still insists on spelling it 'Gae', even though I've told them several times I'm Gay. I started getting ribbed for it in about 1976 - I think before that they used 'queer'. I've often thought of writing to the Telegraph to complain about their headlines. I want to say, 'Make it homosexual, please'. I don't have anything personally against homosexuals as long as they're called homosexuals. I actually think my name's quite handy - it's better than saying, 'Have you got a light?' I've got a bloke sitting next to me with a very interesting surname, too, so hold on... no, no, no, he won't talk about it, sorry."

"My husband's not the Mr Gay who changed to Mr Straight," claims Mrs Straight of Bournemouth. "He was always Straight. We're not hung up on names, but we had a burglary and the policeman said: 'Straight by name, straight by nature, eh?' which was kind. His name was Detective Inspector Crook. He said it was unbearable."

"I was thoroughly fed-up with being ridiculed," says a Sheffield man who changed his name from Brick Tricklebank. "At school, they used to call me Tricklebottom - and much worse. So it was an easy decision. As soon as we were getting married, I asked my fiancee if we could take her name, so now I'm Mr Denial. Denial was the lesser of two evils. But then I worked for an electrical firm who did MoD work and, with Denial on my pass, it caused some uproars - they'd forever check me out. And then someone who'd known me turned up and told everyone I'd dropped Tricklebank, so all the ribbing's come back."

"The problem with being called Miss Beaver is the explicit sexual connotation," explains Anne Beaver of Islington. "Particularly when I meet Americans or Canadians - they're just gobsmacked. They cannot believe that a woman's really got that name. Lots of women will say, 'Oh, that's sweet'. It's men that's mainly the problem. It's a generational thing because my parents didn't have this problem at all. They don't think Beaver's a big thing.

"Names shouldn't bother us, but I'll never sign a cheque 'A Beaver' again because I really can't handle the hoots. It hasn't put me off men - most of us women think men are childish anyway. And at least I'm not a Sharon or Tracy."

Some people suffer when their names are misheard or misprinted, like a harassed woman in Ruthin, Wales, who says, "I've had several holiday bookings made in the name of Stink." And isn't that her real name? "Nooo - it's Spink. You're looking for a Stink, are you? Well, that was BT's mistake. We noticed when it changed from Spink to Stink in the phone book, but I haven't complained. I'm a busy person."

Ditto Mrs Boobcock in London, who insists, "We're Boocock, really. I'm sure BT accounts have a really good laugh every time they send the phone bill out, but I can't be bothered to change it."

Mr Pine-Coffin of Kenilworth is something of an exception: he's proud of his name. "Coffins came across with William the Conqueror," he says. "We're in the Doomesday book. In the 18th century, the Coffins were in danger of, hmm, dying out, and some female in the Coffin family married someone in the Pine family and they decided to hyphenate the names so Coffin would be preserved. I'm sure they must have realised what the result would be. We've all had teasing at school and general incredulity. There's problems giving your name on the phone, registering at hotels, asking for a woman's hand in marriage. And my grandmother was once held at Heathrow Airport - they simply wouldn't believe her passport. It's not a huge problem - but it's a bit of a liability"

The real Clive Sinclair Author or inventor? You decide

"This is Clive Sinclair," says my friend, introducing me to a woman who has just approached us. "Oh good," she exclaims, looking at me with unusual pleasure, "you are one of my heroes, you know."

Now we are at the Groucho Club, in order to celebrate the publication of my friend's new novel, so I am entitled to expect that the third party realises I am the writer, not the inventor of the C5. But I feel obliged to be sure, having no desire to be worshipped under false pretences. "Are you certain you've got the right Clive Sinclair?" I enquire, blushing unheroically. "You know," footnotes my friend helpfully, "he's the man who wrote The Lady With the Laptop." "Oh dear," says the woman, looking straight at me. "I'm afraid I haven't read you," she says, adding, cool as a cucumber, "but if I had, I'm sure you'd be my hero, too."

This is a not uncommon occurrence. A few years ago, a wag wrote to Private Eye mooting that there was, in fact, only one Clive Sinclair. To prove the point, the magazine printed photographs side by side. Certainly, the geography of our countenances appeared similar: hair on chin and cheeks rather than the scalp. But the differences are legion. They must be. I mean, when I saw this headline in a tabloid - "What makes Clive Sinclair irresistible to women?" - I did not imagine (even for a nanosecond) that it referred to me (unless there is an inferred would).

This ability to disassociate upon observing my name in print does have its advantages, however. When reviewers offer opinions such as "Clive Sinclair should consider seeking psychiatric help", or "Clive Sinclair writes with a spade dipped in ordure", or "Clive Sinclair never resists the opportunity of blowing his own trumpet", I can easily redirect the slings and arrows to my namesake.

Now if they had written Joshua Smolensky, it would have been a different matter. Joshua is my Hebrew name, Smolensky my Russian. My father was born a Smolensky and changed his surname in the late Thirties when he was conscripted into the British army (an ironic twist of fate, given that his father had fled Russia in 1905, rather than fight the Japanese, against whom he felt no animosity). My grandfather's forename was Simon, from which his sons (save my father and one other) derived a new patronymic, calling themselves Simmons. Why did my father prefer Sinclair? A radical to his dying day (his heart began to flutter fatally while he was insisting that Netanyahu meet the obligations of the Oslo accords), he always claimed that he chose the surname in honour of Upton Sinclair, an even more belligerent defender of the oppressed.

Perhaps it is true, or at least partly so. But my suspicions are aroused by the fact that there are an extraordinary number of Jewish Sinclairs at large in Britain today (none, save an uncle and a brace of cousins, related to me). What had such an inoffensive surname done to deserve the imposition of so many strangers, this colonization by immigrants? On behalf of us all, I plead guilty of theft. The other Clive Sinclair is the real McCoy, this one merely an imposter.

Matriarchy 2 Patriarchy 0 Who decides the family name, asks Markie Robson-Scott?

"Why are your kids called Robson-Scott?" My friend Victoria phones me to demand an explanation. My sons' names are listed in the school address book, along with mine and my husband's. He has his surname, which is Birch; they have mine. So what's the story? Aren't we married? Are these children, aged five and seven, from some former relationship of mine? No? Well, if he's their dad, why don't they have his last name?

Something that had gone unremarked in a north London primary school was suddenly an item of fascination in this New York suburb, where we were living for a few years. No one else in the school had done anything so off-centre, though some kids had double-barrelled versions of their mom's and dad's last names. Outspoken Americans wanted to know precise details about this weirdness of ours, though none of the children's friends noticed or cared. It's odd that Americans, so anarchic about first names, seem so conservative about last ones. And more than three-quarters of American women still take their husband's names when they marry.

Back in Britain, where most people shy away from potentially embarrassing questions, I still sometimes get the impression that what we've done deserves an explanation. But why do I feel I've been unnecessarily awkward and demanding? Ian, my husband, has brothers, and they all have children, three of them boys. I'm an only child, and the name would die out with my mother and me. So isn't it fair that our sons should carry it on? I'm sure my parents-in-law didn't think so. Ian asked them to use the name on birthday cheques for the boys. His attempt to explain was met with blank incomprehension and ignored, so they have building society accounts in their dad's name.

I can't remember when I decided that I wanted to pass on my name. When I was a teenager, I longed to get rid of it - it was too long, too odd, and I much preferred plain old Scott. But, as I grew older, I started to feel fond of its uniqueness. Half of it comes from a woman, Esther Scott, who in 1859 married and made some kind of property deal with Thomas Robson, who had to agree to change his name to Robson-Scott. So, unusually, the maternal line is in there - even though Scott was Esther's father's name. I wanted to carry it on.

When I'm feeling paranoid, I imagine people think I'm selfish. And would I want to do it if it was a less impressive-sounding name? Many women are pleased to get rid of ugly, boring or unpronounceable surnames. Some don't want to be reminded of their fathers. Some want to put childhood behind them. And lots of British women, after all, keep their maiden name when they marry but stop short of passing it on. Are we still conditioned to regard our surnames as ephemeral things, destined to be lost?

Friends I've spoken to had every intention of doing the same as me, in spite of opposition from partners, but relented when registration day arrived. This falls when the baby's only six weeks old, and perhaps they were feeling particularly exhausted, vulnerable or depressed. Babies bond with mothers more strongly than fathers, and giving the baby the father's name may be a way of including him in the family circle and letting him feel less left out, or of making sure of getting child support with the minimum of fuss.

I suppose we could have given our second son his father's last name to even things out, but we never considered that seriously. It really would be odd to have a different surname to your brother, we thought, though people do it and some say it causes no more confusion than having a stepbrother. Other possibilities I've encountered include creating a new surname altogether when you marry, or letting the females in the family pass on the maternal surname while the males pass on the paternal.

In some parts of India, where last names are often invented or taken from caste names or religious affiliation (the reason why there are so many Indians with the same last name, Patel and Singh), the mother's town name gets passed down as part of the child's family name. In Spain, where a wife keeps her two family names, the first being her father's and the second her mother's, things seem more egalitarian, but they're not really - the children take the father's surname followed by the mother's paternal surname. And in liberal Holland, it's illegal to give the children the mother's surname unless she's unmarried and the father doesn't recognise the child.

But, although our sons' names are registered as Robson-Scott, and it would be nice if they passed it on, I've no illusions about this being written in stone. Already there are signs of rebellion and longing for conformity. "I hate Robson-Scott, it sounds so stupid when you say it - like you're a lord or something," says our 13-year-old. "Yes, when can we change it to dad's name? I like it better. Can we do it now?" agrees his brother