WHAT’S in a name is a question that came to the fore this week, and I don’t just mean for the offspring of a certain footballer and his former pop star wife.

What’s that all about? Harper Seven is the moniker attached to the Beckham’s first girl and hopefully she will grow into liking what she has been called. But it smacks more of a yet further desperate attempt at keeping the brand alive.

Still it could have been worse – they could have called her Oona Orla Seven. Licensed to be billious, methinks.

Anyway, I digress as often I do in this column. Back to names.

This week heralded the affirmation of a new sponsorship deal in which the world’s richest club Manchester City – still seems so weird to write that phrase – will receive another fistful of pounds for renaming their Eastlands home the Etihad Stadium.

Eithad, as you may have gathered watching last season’s FA Cup winners, is also the name adorning the famous light blue colours. The ownership of the airline is connected to the ruling Mansour family who now own City.

The new deal is reported to generate the not insubstantial sum of £400 million to the club over ten years. Now that’s what I call a christening present.

For some reason the deal has angered Arsene Wenger, great manager but increasingly a grating moaner.

From the far-off environs of the Gunners’ Far East pre-season tour, Wenger rails at it being a roundabout way of circumventing the imminent Financial Fair Play rules to be imposed by UEFA, football’s European governing power.

But hang on a minute did not Arsenal receive a tidy sum when moving into their new home? Now what is it called? Oh yes that’s it – the Emirates Stadium. It’s like calling the kettle noir, Monsieur Wenger.

Gunners’ gaffer’s gripes aside, in return for Man City’s Eastlands stadium being re-branded as the Etihad Stadium the area around the ground will be redeveloped into the Etihad Campus featuring all kinds of sporting and social amenities.

Happy days all round and no doubt fans of “the project”, sorry, the club, will be mad for it.

What rests uneasy with this columnist is the eagerness with which clubs seize on their stadia, their headquarters, their homes, being granted new identities for cash, even it is clean and unsullied money rather than plain old ordinary filthy lucre.

In Man City’s case there is barely any tradition attached to their current home, which was always promised after the arena was specifically built for the Commonwealth Games.

From the City of Manchester Stadium to Eastlands was barely a hop, skip and a jump and even though the light-blue shirted squad have since made history on the pitch, little historical fabric has interweaved itself around the current stadium.

But as Man City’s deal reverberates, certainly the money it has accrued, other less well-resourced clubs will have bolted upright at the potential value of their homes.

Sir Bobby Charlton rather sniffily suggested City’s neighbours Manchester United would never sell out Old Trafford. Come on, if owners the Glazer clan could prise enough of the folding stuff from changing the name to the Theatre of Dream Preparation H Arena they would be off clutching their loot quicker than Usain Bolt.

The prospect of a name change is raising its ugly head at my own club Liverpool.

New owners, Fenway Sports Group – Americans, natch – are facing the reality that to redevelop Anfield is highly unlikely so a move to a new stadium, mooted for almost as many seasons as York City’s exit from Bootham Crescent, is the other option.

Funding such a move would be significantly helped by auctioning naming rights. That would mean the emotive name of Anfield would disappear and that is wrong, so wrong, as Ian Holloway may rail.

Any new arena could be called New Anfield, but that conjures images of New Labour and we know how ill-conceived that concept was.

Meanwhile, calling a new stadium Anfield 2 or Anfield II would render the name akin to a blockbuster film sequel or another bizarrely-monikered American golfer, so that’s out.

So what else? The Best in the West Brewers Stadium? The Global Corp Pulent Steakhouse complete with Dreamcream Doughnuts Kop?

As I posed at the outset, what’s in a name? Plenty. Tradition, history, memories and affection – all now imperilled by football’s new naming and shaming game.