Name dropping
Toby Young
In my last 'No life' column I mentioned that my fiancée, Caroline Bondy, has no intention of changing her name to 'Young' after we're married and I invited readers to email me if they could think of a solution to this problem. I was hoping someone might come up with a new surname that we both liked. Well, I'm happy to report that the response has been overwhelming. So far, I've received about 50 replies and I'd like to think that not all of them were prompted by my offer of a free bottle of champagne to the person who came up with the best answer.
Predictably enough, a large percentage of the responses were from men urging me to stiffen my backbone. 'Be a man, keep your name, and tell her to get stuffed if she doesn't like it.' suggested Stan Moore. 'Keep the name, dump the girl,' urged Paul Wigram. 'Stand firm or else next she'll get you to change your wardrobe, friends, job and personality,' counselled Giles O'Flynn, possibly speaking from experience. 'What about Pratt? After reading your column I think this is a most apt suggestion,' wrote the splendidly named Rex Needle. Richard Laviolette, an American reader, wanted to know if I'd consulted Taki about the problem. I haven't, actually, but no doubt he'd agree with Mr Laviolette's advice: 'Please increase your calcium intake, because your spine is drooping.'
Perhaps the most helpful in this vein was the email from Greg Wicksteed suggesting how Caroline might be persuaded to see my point of view. 'Show her a couple of episodes of the TV show Married With Children and threaten to change your name to Bundy instead of Bondy,' he wrote.
Rather surprisingly, several women took an equally traditional line. 'Good God, man, what sort of a Tory are you? Tell her she'll be Missus Young and be done with it!' spluttered Claire Norris in Australia. 'Perhaps the indomitable Caroline would prefer to be Ms Young-Free-and-Single,' opined Sylvia McGlynn. 'After all, one could argue in favour of its semblance to a legal firm, thereby promoting her as a singularly capable lawyer.' Ms McGlynn went on to recount her hair-raising experiences as Mrs Vladimir Kalashnikov. 'Forget the "Bonds" — marriage is full of them,' she concluded, 'Stay "Young" — but stay single.'
Thankfully, some people genuinely applied themselves to the problem — or, at least, pretended to. 'You may combine Bondy and Young into a single "Boing",' wrote Anastasia Levine. think this is quite a nice name, especially when pronounced with enthusiasm.' However, having come up with this brilliant suggestion, Ms Levine then turned down the prize she thought she was bound to win. 'Please, no champagne,' she begged. `I'm only 14.'
Patrick Flanery agreed with me that I couldn't possibly take Caroline's name: 'Bond is clearly passé and Bondy sounds pointedly antipodean — not at all the sort of mark one wants these days.' He thought that any of the following would be viable
substitutes: 'Cleverley', `Chetwynde' or 'Beste-Chetwynde'. 'There's nothing inherently wrong with the appearance of social ambition,' he explained, helpfully. 'It's certainly preferable to antipodeanism.'
Other suggestions included 'Bong', `Younghusband', 'Jung', Wong' and, of course, 'Bondage'. Perhaps the most ingenious was from the man who'd taken the Gaelic version of his own name and counselled me to do the same. The Irish word for 'Young', apparently, is cog', though it should be pronounced so it rhymes with 'vogue' rather than 'hog': 'You would have to explain this of course and that would be half the fun.' I'm not sure about that, but this gentleman evidently knows a thing or two about explaining odd-sounding names. Thank you, Conchubar Mac Conmara.
The winning email came from Jennifer Parkinson, a reader in Rome, who suggested we each keep our own names: 'I got married here in 1986 and did as the Romans do, i.e., wife keeps her own name for all official/professional/personal purposes.' This was also suggested by half a dozen others, but Ms Parkinson — or should that be Mrs Fabio Manili? — managed to come up with it first. Thank you, Jennifer. A bottle of champagne is on its way.
I hope I don't sound ungrateful. I really am indebted to anyone who bothered to reply. For those of you who want to read all the responses in full, they can be found on the Feedback page of The Spectator's brand new website (www.spectator.co.uk) which I'm now editing. In the meantime, if Caroline and I do keep our own names after we're married we'll be faced with a new dilemma: what should we call our children? No champagne this time, I'm afraid, but I'd still like to hear your suggestions. (I might be able to get another column out of them.) My email address is: tyoung@infohouse.com.
Previous page
