What's in a name?

Week two

As I wrote down the children’s names so Santa could greet them personally, I was corrected at every turn. “No, that is not how you spell Talula Bell” It is “T-I-ll-u-l-a”.

I want to scream at this parent and ask her why she thought it was a good idea to scar her child in this way. It may be all fun and games now while she is dressed as a fairy princess and has no care in the world other than making sure she has her magic wand by her side, but give it another 10 years and she’ll be wishing her name were Talia.

On and on the names appear. Some provide their surnames too, one before I can stop her and tell her I only need a first name, must have gone through her entire family history as I struggled to find a piece of paper big enough to write down this child’s quadruple-barrelled name.

“I don’t really care,” I want to scream. It’s just a formality and now I have to ask how to spell every single name, and get laughed at by the adults who have decided to name their children sensibly, and don’t understand why I am so thick.

Now not even the ‘Talias’ of this world are safe. Nothing can be assumed. There are double L’s, A’s and H’s appearing all over the place.

So if you overhear an elf ask how to spell Talia, it’s not because they didn’t get their English GCSE.