A Princess Tiaamii with fried rice, please... (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

A Princess Tiaamii with fried rice, please...

1:42pm Monday 30th July 2007

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So Katie Price and Peter Andre have finally named their baby girl. And predictably, they've gone for the ridiculous option. Well, she was never going to be called Mary or Julie was she?

No, their infant has been landed with the name Princess Tiaamii. I don't know how to pronounce it either.

Katie says the name is a combination of the couple's mothers' names - Thea and Amy. Right, see what you did there. Genius.

There's something incredibly naff about combining two names to make a new name. It follows the rather dated trend of couples calling their house after themselves.

In Brookside Ron Dixon and his wife Bev called their house Casa Bevron. It made Dunroamin' sound classy.

To celebrate her daughter's new name Katie plans to have a crown tattooed on the back of her neck, with the word Princess underneath. She'll regret that if Princess Tiaamii turns out to be a lawyer or a doctor and changes her name by deed poll to something more socially acceptable.

Saddling your child with a ludicrous name is hugely self-indulgent. Why do so many parents insist on doing it? What is wrong with normal tried-and-tested names that have survived centuries? Why do parents feel this burning desire to make up new names? I assume they think it makes them look sophisticated, cool, clever or classy. It doesn't - it just makes them look thick and pretentious. And those names will date faster than you can say Fifi Trixiebell, so in a few years time your children will be saddled with names you've gone off.

Little girls call their dolls silly names but babies are human beings, not dolls. Parents might find it amusing or cute to call their precious bundle High Priestess Leopard Spots Banana Skin, but will the child find it so amusing when they're being picked on for having the most ludicrous name in school?

While parents are wildly picking daft names out of thin air, or making up new spellings of normal names, are they actually thinking about the child who has to live with the reality of whatever they choose? Or are they too busy thinking about what kind of tattoo they can have?

Poor Princess Tiaami will have to go through life spelling out her name to people, from primary school upwards. When she's older she will receive correspondence with her name spelt wrong and will often have to cut through yards of red tape to put it right. People won't know how to pronounce it so she'll get called all kinds of things.

And what if she's a serious, studious child who'd rather bury her head in a book than pose for a glossy magazine? What if her life's ambition stretches beyond going out clubbing with a miniature dog sticking out of her handbag?

I'm sure Katie will have Princess dressed up like a dog's dinner in every shade of pink imaginable, but the child might grow up to be a scientist or a teacher. And unfortunately she'll have the name of a nightclub dancer.

Katie and Peter aren't the first celebrities to land their child with a ridiculous name and they won't be the last. And because the world is full of wannabe celebs, these ridiculous names get copied by ordinary mortals. There will be countless Brooklyns, Romeos and Cruzes all over the country, not to mention the odd Apple, Lourdes and Bluebell Madonna. Do we really want a world full of Tinkerbells and Talulahs?

There is a danger that if parents continue to make up names, or copy celebrity names, old traditional names will die out, and with that dies a part of our history and heritage.

Children will no longer be named after great works of literature, sportsmen, great writers or leaders. They'll be named after the children of soap stars and glamour models. And that's depressing.

I hope for her sake Princess Tiaami has the strength of will to follow her own path in life, despite being landed with a name that sounds like a Chinese takeaway.