WOULD a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Would a Trump still smell as … (feel free to fill in blanks as you see fit).

In all fairness to President Fart there’s little any of us can do about our surname unless we decide to legally change it, and we only have our mums and dads to thank for our Christian names. Little embryos out there just have to hope their parents have some sense and don’t make rash decisions like selecting the city of conception, Beckham-style (Hull or Newcastle just wouldn’t cut it in the playground).

A friend of mine is pregnant, which is what got me started on the topic of names. I’ve been making suggestions of some she might like to consider, and it’s amazing how, once you start, it’s difficult to stop. After all, there are names everywhere - on film credits, graduation ceremony roll calls, team selection lists for football matches – a fact which just highlights how ludicrous it is that expectant parents go out and spend hard-earned cash on books which simply list hundreds of potential baby names in alphabetical order. If you’re lucky, you might also get the different variations of names thrown in, or better still, their meanings - but do people really care whether their chosen name means “exotic flower” or “valley of peace”?

Many of us have bought such books, however, including me. It’s a trap that’s difficult to evade: what if there’s a perfect name out there for your newborn, just waiting to be plucked from thin air? How will you know you’ve picked the right one until you’ve scrutinised every other Christian name possible?

Obviously my friend’s ultimate choice is absolutely nothing to do with me (although I’ve made some very decent suggestions so far – Benedict, Arthur, Lucas, to name but a few) and she may well make a lovely/ boring/ traditional/ peculiar choice that will leave the rest of us mentally scratching our heads while smiling politely.

But it’s all subjective; one mother’s top name is on another’s “never in a million” list.

When I was born, my parents’ friends thought they’d made up my name. It was only when, a year after my birth, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.0 that people that accepted it was a perfectly legitimate name.

I’ve been told that when my grandad first visited me in hospital, he had to repeat my name several times to the midwife when she asked who he had come to see. She thought he was saying “no idea”. Decades later, in the Western world Nadia remains fairly unusual but is a more widely recognised thanks to TV’s Nadia Sawalha, the 2004 Big Brother winner Nadia Almada, and Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain.

In our family, we pronounce it “Nar-de-a” but many people still insist on calling me Nadia, with a short “a” like the start of a sneeze. They think it’s a north-south pronunciation thing. It’s not; it’s simply my name. Wherever I am in the world, it stays the same. It’s not that difficult really. You wouldn’t call a Steven ‘Stefan’, or change Sara to Sarah. But, admittedly, even family members have struggled - my husband’s late Nan insisted on calling me ‘Narna’ for years, as if short for banana.

When my first son was born I scrutinised recent lists of Top 10 most popular names, determined to avoid them. I didn’t want anything way out and wacky, but growing up, there’d been five Sarahs in my class, a couple of Claires and a fair few Joannes so I wanted my child to have his own identity, rather than, for example, John Number 1. Second time round, I forgot my rule and chose the name we liked best. My youngest son now shares his name with at least four others in his football team. According to one website, the top five names last year were Oliver, Muhammad, Noah, Harry and Jack, with Olivia, Lily, Sophia, Emily and Amelia for the girls.

Sci-fi films played a small part in helping parents with their choice, with Finn - the main character in The Force Awakens - jumping up the ranks. The Royals also proved popular with Charlotte, Kate, Catherine, George and Harry enjoying a resurgence while Rolling Stones rock ‘n’ roll legend Ronnie Woods called his twin daughters Gracie and Alice, pushing Alice up to number 19 on the list, with Gracie at number 83, gaining 12 places on the previous year.

I’m guessing 2017 will see Sebastian and Mia, of La La Land fame, holding their own.

It’s a complicated choice nowadays, no longer bound by the age-old tradition of honouring family names, and I can’t say I envy those making it. To all expectant parents, good luck.