Help, my name's Lolita

Woolworths got into trouble for calling something Lolita, but what's it like to be lumbered with a name with troubling undertones?

What's in a name? Quite a lot actually, if your name is Lolita.

This is no longer simply a female given name of Spanish origin, a diminutive form of the more popular, better-established name Dolores, Spanish for "suffering".

Thanks to Vladimir Nabokov's still notorious novel Lolita, first published in 1955, and the two films based on his book - Stanley Kubrick's classic of 1962 and Adrian Lyne's updated version in 1997 - the name Lolita has become synonymous with a sexualised view of young girls.

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And Lolitas are not the only ones who have name troubles.

"Names come in and out of favour," says Pamela Redmond Satran, a naming expert and author of eight books on baby names, including The Brilliant Book of Baby Names and Cool Names for Babies.

"Monica is a good example in the US. The name had been inching up and was at number 79 in 1997. The Monica character in Friends helped make it popular. But in 1998, after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, the name slipped to 105 and went down even further the next year, never to recover.

"It was just too linked to odious qualities: abuse of power, sexual degradation... lots of things you wouldn't want connected with your innocent newborn daughter."

The name Katrina has also declined in popularity in the US following Hurricane Katrina.

In Britain, the name Myra declined in popularity following the Moors Murders. And names such as Adolf and Judas are now extremely rare. One man who has struggled more than most with his moniker is Lucifer Howse, a 33-year-old alternative medicine practitioner in Brighton.

Mr Howse only discovered his true first name in his late teens - prior to that, his family called him Luke for short. "I had a real crisis when I found out my name was Lucifer. I went off the rails," he says...

 

And a follow-up article from the BBC: A boy called Primrose

 

Following our piece on real people lumbered with undertone-laden names like Lolita and Lucifer, here is a selection of your unusual or difficult names.

Tia Maria Lancaster, Maidstone, Kent
"Good job your mum didn't like Guinness" is the usual comment I get when people see my name.

Rupert Bearne, Market Drayton
My unusual name Rupert Bear(ne) has brought me nothing but joy. Once seen never forgotten. Once caused me a bit of bother with a policeman who thought I was making it up...