The terrible names parents give their children

What kind of parent calls their child ‘Storm’, ‘Beetroot’, or ‘Brussell Sprout’? Only the kind that hasn’t thought about the consequences for that child. I appeared on Woman’s Hour, with Dea Birkett, who had called her children ‘Storm’ and ‘Savannah’. I complained that called your child ‘Storm’ forces a personality, an attitude, a metaphor upon that child that more anodyne names just don’t. Harmless names like Tom or Charlotte allow children to find their own personalities, whereas ‘Storm’ forces eccentricity upon a child.

We also spoke about the appalling state of boy’s reading on the show. I felt that the teaching profession and reading generally had become too feminised, seen too much as a ‘cissy’ activity. It’s time to bring the machismo back to reading!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2008_33_fri.shtml‘