Bizarre Names Newspaper
Wrong impression
Newspapers gleefully claimed this week that Ikea was the latest example of barmy parents calling their newborn children after brand names. Er, not quite.

Loved though it is by many, the world's favourite Swedish furniture store does not inspire happy emotions in everyone - stress, crowds and flatpack-inspired frustration to name a few.

Given this, Ikea is not an obvious name to give a baby.

Hence it was no surprise that, with the news that baby names seem to be getting stranger, some papers pounced on the example of Ikea as evidence.

"After Janet and John, Moet and Ikea," was a typical headline.

The source appeared to be baby information firm Bounty, which distributes Bounty packs including disposable nappies to mothers in hospital.

Its research was based on 600,000 mothers, which the company claims covers 98% of new mums.

Accompanying some recent examples, its survey suggested the number of unusual names was up 20%. More interestingly, it concluded that children with curious monikers grow up to be proud of them eventually, and two-thirds give their own children an equally peculiar name, because they see it as a "unique selling point".

The names Levi, Moët, Caramel, Apricot, Bambi, Rocky, Tudor and Red were on their list for the last year, the papers highlighted, although Levi is a Biblical name and definitely not new.

But what could Bounty tell us about the Ikea child?

Not very much.

Radio clue

Spokeswoman Pauline Kent said: "The Ikea name didn't appear in our main poll. This is a list for the last year and we have been doing this for about three years so this could be a child born four years ago."

So where did the papers get it from?

"A journalist said to me that someone had been interviewed on the radio because they had written a book about unusual baby names in the US, like Armani, and this person being interviewed said they had heard of someone in the UK calling their baby Ikea," said Ms Kent.

Sure enough, there was an Ikea born in the UK, but it was more than three years ago.

Linda Dagless, who was 26 at the time, named her fourth daughter after the furniture store in May 2002.

At the time, she told her local paper in Norwich: "I was pregnant, sitting on the sofa with my boyfriend and trying to think of a name for the little girl I was going to have when I noticed the Ikea advert."

"I saw the name Ikea and thought it would make a nice name for my baby."

"I have seen the Ikea adverts on the telly and in magazines and thought they always had nice furniture, but I've never been to the shop. I'm now planning to go there with my mum."

Scarred

There may well be a newborn Ikea out there, of course. However the Office for National Statistics says there are certainly not more than five in all of England and Wales; hardly evidence of a new trend for wacky names.

And it seems Moet is not so unusual either, with at least one woman in her 20s carrying the name - and one man too.

But the story of a whole houseful of Ikeas? Perhaps it just wasn't screwed together properly.