And finally…name your price

Parents-to-be with a surplus of cash and deficit of imagination are currently paying up to £20,000 to third parties to name their unborn child for them, it has emerged.

According to Bloomberg, Switzerland-based naming agency Erfolgswelle will charge up to £20,000 ($29,000) for the onerous task of naming just one baby.

But Mark Hauser, who runs the agency, it at pains to stress that the £20k won’t only get you a name. He will also devote up to three weeks to research the name’s history.

The business model has also appeared in north America and ‘My Name for Life‘, a company run by Sherri Suzanne in New York, advertises a service similar to its Swiss counterpart.

Suzanne, who is a ‘baby name consultant’, will spend 30 hours on a single ‘name report’ and prices start from “several hundred dollars”, according to her website, which states: “My Name for Life is here to help you discover the attractive and memorable name meant just for your baby.

“You’ll find the patient, supportive assistance you need to pick the name your child will say and write proudly for the rest of his or her life.”

The service describes itself as a “personal, private, no-pressure way of getting honest advice and wonderful name suggestions”.

And Albert Mehrabian, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Los Angeles believes it is “worth every penny”.

“Believe me, you don’t want to name a child with an unattractive name and have them go through life and suffer the consequences,” he told Bloomberg.

“If you are getting somebody who really knows the evidence, then I’ll say it’s worth every penny, whether its $500 or $5,000.”

There is, however, no information about where these “consultants” get their expertise from.

Duana Taha, who writes the Name Nerd column on American website LaineyGossip.com, believes parents appreciate having a “complete stranger” giving advice.

She said: “It’s not as simple as finding a name that is phonetically pleasing for a child.

“You also want to have a name that kind of signifies how you feel about them or how you want them to feel.”