Brian Viner: If it's the end for Finisterre, what chance Gibraltar?

There was a story in The Sun a couple of months ago which, despite that newspaper's honourable tradition of journalistic accuracy and fearless integrity, rather strained credibility. The paper reported that a sea captain from the Western Isles, a fellow called Craig Buttock, had saddled all 11 of his children not only with the decidedly unfortunate surname Buttock, but also with first names taken from the shipping forecast areas in which he received the news of their births.

When he heard the news 20-odd years ago that his first child had been delivered safely, he was fighting a force nine gale off the south-west coast of Ireland. Accordingly, he and his wife decided to call their newborn daughter Shannon. But his later children weren't so lucky with his whereabouts. Shannon was apparently followed by Dogger, now 19, Portland Bill, 17, 16-year-old twins (how fortuitous) North Utsire and South Utsire, Butt of Lewis, 14, Rockall, 12, Viking, nine, Cromarty, six, Malin Head, four, and 12-month-old German Bight.

"They'll thank me for it one day," The Sun reported Captain Buttock as saying. One very much doubts it. At the very least, young German Bight Buttock, as he gets older, will surely feel compelled to drop the German, or perhaps the Bight. Either way, I am reminded of the old Monty Python gag that Mr Arthur Penis wishes to inform all his friends and relatives that he is henceforth to be known as Mr Art Penis.

Whatever, if we suspend scepticism and assume The Sun's story to be true, then Captain Buttock will this week be thanking his lucky stars – not that lucky stars are half as useful as Radio 4 in avoiding maritime misadventure – that he did not name one of his children Finisterre. Because Finisterre, as you may have heard, has been dropped in favour of Fitzroy, reportedly after complaints from Spain that it caused confusion with the Spanish shipping area Finisterre, which is in roughly the same place but slightly smaller.

In a way, it is wonderful that a shipping area has finally been designated Fitzroy, for Admiral Robert Fitzroy it was who in 1854 established the Meteorological Office, which makes him the father of modern weather forecasting. And this belated honour is all the more fitting since poor old Fitzroy topped himself in 1865, apparently following criticism that he had got the weather forecast wrong. (Michael Fish, mercifully, is made of sterner stuff.)

On the other hand, it is a cherished national institution that they are messing with here. It is not the first time that the shipping forecast has been tweaked – in 1956, to much hurrumphing in naval circles, German Bight replaced Heligoland – but this is more alarming. Are not the waters around our great island already under threat of being concreted over, figuratively at least, so that wheelbarrows of euros might eventually be trundled over from Brussels and dumped on an aghast Middle England?

Moreover, once we have kowtowed to Spain over the name of a shipping area, what chance Gibraltar? Finisterre becomes Fitzroy, and the next thing you know, British sovereignty is greatly diminished, leaving only England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and sweet Rockall.

Still, Fitzroy is at least a venerable British name (even if the "roy" bit does derive from the French word roi, and even if the "Fitz" bit sounds suspiciously German), which is a good deal more than can be said of Finisterre. So perhaps this messing with a cherished institution is a good thing, a way of fighting against the rising tide – whipped up by a severe political gale 9 to violent storm 11, south-east veering south-west, cyclonic 5 in east for a time – of European domination. Or perhaps this Europhobic vision of the future is moderate with fog patches becoming poor.

b.viner@independent.co.uk