[names] sweet smelling roses

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet [Will the Bard, 1594]

The Pedant-General in Ordinary, to give Cleanthes his full title, is a fine, upstanding, curmudgeonly chap by his lights [except from his insane ideas on intelligent design which all right thinking people know to be true] and he rightly points out, initially quoting a fellow blogger:

“Do we want a Prime Minister named Kevin?”

Quite. I recall in the dim and distant past a threat to Margaret Thatcher’s leadership. Cabinet Ministers Tebbit and Fowler were both touted as challengers, apparently seriously. My instant reaction, correctly for once, was to dismiss the entire story as nonsense.

Britain in the 1980s was simply not ready for a Prime Minister called “Norman”…

Could a man named Balls [as in got me by the] ever become PM? Could Howard Brush Dean ever be President? How about a local candidate named Slartibartfast?

Recently, officials at the Cornwall Record Office in England (motto: “We’re called Cornwall, we know about strange names”) searched through birth, death, and marriage records dating as far back as the 16th century and found Abraham Thunderwolff, Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane, Philadelphia Bunnyface, and Offspring Gurney.

But why need names be weird? What about names designed to elevate you to high office? Here are five male English names and I've done that to eliminate choice based on gender or nationality. Which of these would you be more inclined to place your trust in, as leader?

1. Franklin James

2. John Smith

3. Uriah Beckett

4. Tersel Badcock

5. Steve Casey

Sometimes the association of the name is offputting. Which of these would you immediately reject?

1. Manson Hume

2. Blair Gordon

3. Adolph Barlow

4. Obama Fleming

5. Napoleon Jamison

Lastly, what would you name your new baby?

Raquelle? Roy? Roxy? Rock? How about Charlotte?

Slartibartfast