Chat to any prospective parents and the chances are that they’ll happily explain exactly how they’re preparing for their new arrival. The colour of the nursery, the sleep plan they’re intending on following (until it all inevitably goes out of the window), the extortionate price of buggies – all these minutiae are up for discussion. It’s alternately charming and disorientating, seeing the friends with whom you sat on the school bus or snuck into clubs underage suddenly consumed by grown-up details.
But there is one subject that seems to have the power to make even the most forthcoming parents-to-be fall quiet. Ask them about the baby names that they’re considering, and it’s as if a drawbridge has come up. An apparently innocuous question tends to elicit only cautious responses. “Well, we’ve got a list, but we’re keeping them quiet for now,” they might say, with a meaningful glance at one another. Or perhaps they’ll outright admit that they’ve come up with the perfect choice – but you’ll have to wait and see exactly what that perfect choice is.
