Celebrity Baby Names - Romeo Beckham

The fuss over the Beckhams' choice of name for their new baby underlines our warped attitude to the Bard.

The pressing question for the tabloids this week is addressed to a tiny newborn. "Romeo," they chant, these red tops, "Romeo. Why fore art thou Romeo?" Hilarious. Do you see what they've done there? They've taken, like, a famous quote, and then amended it in a side-splitting fashion to convey: a) that this name derives from Shakespeare; and b) that they find it silly.

In many ways they're right, of course. This is a silly name. And the golden rule with child-naming is that if you want a stupid name in your family, you change your own. (Having said that, Posh has already honoured this particular code and, as far as I'm aware, there is no child protection formula in place for what to do if you want three stupid names in your family.)

Now, the reason I think it's a stupid name is that all men secretly wish they were called Mark (so classless and simple, so easy to spell, so versatile). If you're going to name boys at all, it should be as close to Mark as possible without being Mick. The voices of the nation, however, seem to have a slightly more complex problem with Romeo. The Mirror, alluding wittily to the naming of Brooklyn, asks: "Was he conceived in the back of an Alfa?" The Sun notes neutrally: "The Beckhams are better known as fans of fashion rather than Shakespeare." The trusty Mail goes in for the kill with a cartoon captioned "Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Tis me yer dad wiv some flars for yer mum."

What we seem to have here is an example of what foreigners sometimes describe as insane, passé, go-nowhere English snobbery. Naming your kid after a place where you had sex, well, that's one thing; a little bit cute, a little bit saucy, a little bit glamorous, yik yak yik yak, but naming your kid after a seminal character in English literature, well, who on earth do you think you are?

Certain commentators are already wondering whether either parent could possibly have read the play, as if - chortle! - they're going to get a nasty surprise when they find out that the namesake was a whey-faced love-fool who killed himself. Certain "friends of the couple" (for which read "made-up quotes") have insinuated that they chose the name because they see themselves as the ultimate modern romance, thus compounding their crime with hubris (they're only getting their sticky fingers all over our national treasure because they think they rock). The general theme is that Shakespeare is too rarefied and refined for the likes of these people, hence the comic insistence that Posh is more likely to be referring to the Dire Straits song.

This is bloody moonshine - everybody in the world knows the plot of Romeo and Juliet. This play is not some shibboleth of education and breeding. It is as much part of popular culture as the words to Bohemian Rhapsody. It has no snob value whatsoever; it's not even hard. Let's accept there's an outside chance that a person who went to drama school has never come across the slender masterpiece, but what are the chances that she's never seen West Side Story? Same plot, cracking dialogue, infinitely better dancing, yet if Posh had called her son Tony, the repercussions would have been non-existent.

We have a dodgy relationship with Shakespeare. On the one hand, if contestants on the Weakest Link can't name four major characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream, they go straight to the top of Private Eye's Dumb Britain. Yet if anyone without substantial higher education dares to allude to the bearded man with anything like familiarity, they're being outlandishly pretentious. It's a double-bind in which the putatively undereducated can never win, and can never even challenge their detractors, because it's all done behind a snigger. The reason Shakespeare is so often used as the engine of this nasty manoeuvre is that he's the one author in the entire canon with whom you can muster a passing familiarity without even having to read any, just by being middle class.

The truly posh (as opposed to Posh Spice) can litter their litters with any number of pretentious names. They don't even stop at classics such as Penelope before they're on to Artemis (which I once misheard as arsonist). Nigella Lawson's daughter is called Cosima, after the Greek kosmos, meaning beauty and order. Did anyone lob snide remarks at her? Did anyone wonder aloud how good her ancient Greek was, that she be allowed to plunder it for names? Of course not; she is way too classy.

Psychologists to the stars often remark on their habit of giving their children curious handles. Rent-a-Raj Persaud said yesterday it was part of the "thrust to stand out from the crowd" that so characterises the celebrity. In fact, though, the whole name game is laced with class signifiers, and it's only natural that people who are effectively outside the class system, by dint of sudden fame and wealth, should also want to step off the attendant name-carousel and go for a Fifi Trixabell or a Zowie Bowie instead. Anyone who objects to this is merely betraying an unhealthy thirst for social stasis. Which isn't to say Romeo's going to have any fun in the playground.