week 14: n

Names, like so many things, have suffered a sea change in the last decade. In the early years of this century the tradition of calling a child after a member of the father's or mother's family was extremely common. This system saved mental effort but was a potential source of much inter-family rivalry.

Things might not have been too bad when people produced enough children to pacify most families, but what would happen in these days of the ''one child, if any'' fashion? Open war. Fortunately, the naming game had become less traditional by the time this trend caught on. The 1960s, renowned for kicking over the traces of conventionality, witnessed a taste for innovation in names that has gone on developing.

Such innovation has gone hand in hand with a change in the nature of our icons. It has been a custom throughout history to name children after the heroic or the famous. Such characters were often of a religious nature. Some were biblical, whether Old Testament, such as Adam, David, Rebecca and Ruth, or New Testament, such as Matthew, Mark, Mary and Martha. Many of them were saints, such as Gregory, Francis, Agnes and Theresa. The secular great tended to be kings, queens or nobles and they, too, influenced the naming of infants. The name Elizabeth gained such popularity in England not directly from the Bible, but from the much admired Tudor queen of the name.

Saints and the royals are old hat now, supplanted by football players, film stars and pop singers. The modern embryo, however, has even greater cause for concern than this. Apparently, it is becoming common to ignore all traditions and simply invent names. Poor children!