We spent quite a bit of time during my second pregnancy discussing names for the new baby. For some reason, we found boys’ names very difficult to agree on; we both quite liked Richard, but wanted a second name to begin with A, and that was more difficult. We liked Alexander, and Alex, but my husband was less keen on Alec as an abbreviation, for reasons that never became clear, and so that lapsed. I liked Andrew better than he did, but we eventually compromised on Arthur, which occurred on both sides of the family. Then we went on to girls’ names; if I had had triplet girls, we would have had two names ready for each of them; I think Kathryn Grace was top choice, in the end.

And then came The Day. And a little fellow appeared, so it turned out he was going to be Richard. Someone said, “It’s a boy!” and my husband dashed off to make phone calls. While he was gone, things got a bit interesting again, and by the time he reappeared, I was flat on my back, with a baby in each arm. “Sorry, love,” I said, as he came through the door. “Two!!”

So (having first demonstrated exactly what facial expression fits the term “pole-axed”) he turned and went off to make some more phone calls. And our poor second son had to endure several days of being known as The Other One, until we came up with a set of names.

The postscript to this happened about 11 years later, when Richard came in to lunch one day and suddenly remarked, “You know, I quite like my name, but I wish you’d called me Alexander. I’d have liked that.”

So there you are. Listen to what you’re being told in the middle of the night!

Edit: It occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that we might have got this wrong twice. When we were expecting Baby No. 1, who was just always going to be a girl, our first choice was Victoria, but again, my husband started worrying about abbreviations, and not liking all of the diminutive forms. We settled on Elizabeth, in the end.

Who has chosen always to be Elizabeth in full, never Liz or anything like that. But whenever she writes anything semi-autobiographical (and she writes a lot) she always calls the character who is obviously her, Victoria…