Kyliefication
It's time for some chilling news kids: the first Kylies and Jasons are, I am told, filtering through to secondary schools across the land.
OK, it was the late 1980s so the parents can probably be excused for struggling to think of a good name for a flailing bundle of flesh in between brandishing that Filofax, slagging off the miners and worshipping at the shrine of Thatcherism.
However there is something profoundly wrong at Greek tragedy being hijacked for the sake of Australian farce.
It's just sad to think of these unfortunate souls rattling around the UK and named after the two icons of late 1980s cheese, one still on the pop scene sporting a perfectly toned behind, the other working in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a holiday stand-in. For Gary Wilmot.
They're certainly not as lucky as people called Jack and Emma, which this week were revealed as the top names of 2003. But at least we have the freedom in this country to saddle the little blighters with horrendous appendanges.
In France, children's names must be picked from a prescribed list and in China all names have a clear meaning, whether it's 'Build the Motherland' or 'The Seven Arches Bridge is a Victory for Socialism.'
As a just-popped nipper, my parents thought it would be a great idea to call me Patrick. Then they remembered that, as a Northern Irish Protestant, that might get me beaten up in future.
It's just fascinating how names carry such resonance.
Jason, for example, means 'healer,' a fact the Donovan one clearly forgot when hacking the charts into seven pieces and burying them in an unmarked grave.
Monica is another example of a previously pretty standard name forever stained because of events beyond the name-bearers' control.
My dear old Granny rejoices in the name Idabell, which is just unthinkable for a girl now.
And spare a thought for the father of Manchester United footballers Philip and Gary Neville. He's called Neville Neville.
Adeline-Fleur Smith, a first year engineer at St Hugh's College, says having a different name certainly has its drawbacks.
"My hatred of Disney films stems from the fact that I spent the whole of year four at school being called Aladdin," she reveals.
Paranoia about swear words forced a technologically-minded group of American Christian religious fundamentalists in the mid-1990s to create a device which cancelled the sound on televisions and brought up toned-down subtitled for impressionable kids.
All was well until Mary Poppins came on. Starring Penis van Lesbian of course, with his dodgy cockney accent and all this jumping in and out of chalk pictures.
We're almost getting onto Paula Yates territory, though a quick look through the top 100 names shows Peaches Honeyblossom, Pixie, Fifi Trixibelle and Heavenly Hiranni Tiger Lily have, alas, not made the cut this year.
But this time in 14 years which names will be hitting the roll books? Jude? Jade? Jordan? Jodie?
Or how about Kilroy?
15th Jan 2004