Much has been written about the tears shed during Keir Starmer’s interview with Piers Morgan. But there were laughs too – not least when the Labour leader revealed that his middle name was Rodney. The audience guffawed at this revelation, confirming why Starmer hated it so much that he pretended he didn’t have a middle name when filling in his marriage certificate in 2007. His friends later played a trick on him by faking a letter from Essex Council which suggested that as he had not used his full name, the marriage was null and void. Starmer’s father was called Rodney. Originally a surname, it gained popularity as a first name in the late 18th century, courtesy of Admiral George Brydges Rodney, a commander during the American war of independence. It was a moderately popular name in the 1930s and 40s in England and Wales, ranked 48th in 1944, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But it was only after 1981, when Starmer was 19, that it became a source of mirth. That’s when Only Fools and Horses was first broadcast. It went on to become one of the biggest shows of the 1980s, with Del Boy’s despair at his younger brother – Rodney, you plonker! – emerging as one of the nation’s favourite catchphrases. It is no doubt thanks to the Trotter siblings that just four baby boys were named Rodney in England and Wales in 2019. But in an era of politics obsessed with “relatability”, Starmer despising his middle name puts him firmly in man-of-the-people territory. Almost everyone hates theirs. Part of that could be because, like Starmer, “there’s a statistically heightened chance that your second name is taken from someone else in your family”, says Richard Coates, a retired professor in onomastics (names) from the University of the West of England. “So it depends on your attitude to that person.” Starmer’s relationship with his father was “difficult”, he admitted to Morgan, so it’s no surprise he didn’t appreciate the onomastic honour. Or maybe he thought it was just a duff name. After all, long before Rodney Trotter made it to the small screen, making fun of people’s middle names had been a popular sport. That’s why until about 1990, most parents chose their children’s names to fit in, either with their classmates or with family tradition. The ONS does not collect records of middle names, but ask a white woman from England what her middle name is if she was born between 1975 and 1985 and there is a high chance it is Elizabeth, Louise, Cla(i)re, Anna or Ja(y)ne. If you were a boy who wasn’t already called John then it was probably your middle name. That or William. It feels like there are more middle names now. The rise of children born out of wedlock has led to an increase in babies being given one parent’s surname (almost always the mother’s – because: the patriarchy) in lieu of a middle name. This is a favoured ploy of those still prejudiced against double-barrelled surnames and those guilty feminists ashamed that even though they kept their own name after marriage they allowed their kid to carry their dad’s. Still, you can call your child pretty much whatever you want in the UK if it’s not obviously offensive – in 2019 there were 493 baby girls christened Nevaeh, which is “heaven” backwards. That’s not the case in some other countries. In Germany, the Society for German Language regulates unconventional baby names, turning down common nouns (Gwyneth Paltrow could not have got away with Apfel), abbreviations and place names including Ibiza and Berlin. Given he helms a party obsessed with its working class credentials, Starmer should wear Rodney with pride. How much earthier it is than Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – or, indeed, Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. by Helen Louise Pidd (b. 1981, Lancashire) • This article was amended on 4 June 2021. It is most common nouns that are proscribed as baby names in Germany, not “proper nouns”.