Penelope Scotland – just another ludicrous celebrity baby name

So, Andy Murray didn’t win Wimbledon and T in the Park was a total washout, but, people of Scotland, all is not lost: a Kardashian has kindly named her baby after you.

Kourtney (the short one that isn’t Kim) and her boyfriend Scott Disick welcomed baby Penelope Scotland Disick into the world over the weekend. Which is lovely and everything but WHY WHY WHY name the poor bonnie wee bairn (aargh, look what they’ve done to my vocabulary - I’m from Cambridgeshire!) after a country they’ve probably never been to?

Of course, rich people being named after places they could afford to buy is nothing new: Brooklyn Beckham, Paris Hilton… er, Bolivia Newton John? But Scotland doesn’t even sound like a name; let alone a girl’s name. It’s a shame that Kourtney and Scott have sabotaged a cute, feminine, kinda vintagey name like Penelope with something so harsh, so masculine, so… tartan. 

"How disappointing would it be if a family as ludicrous as the Kardashians plumped for something sensible, given their history of kompletely krazy names?"

At least their other child got away with a form of punctuation as his middle name – it sounded rubbish when he was born two years ago, but now Mason Dash Disick must be feeling rather smug.

At the same time, how disappointing would it be if a family as ludicrous as the Kardashians plumped for something sensible, given their history of kompletely krazy names?

The fact is, we all take a great deal of glee from the silly names celebs have a tendency of inflicting on their offspring: we giggled when Nicole Kidman named her daughter after her favourite Wetherspoons meal deal (Sunday Roast. Sorry, Sunday Rose) and still regularly mock Jamie Oliver for famously preventing his entire brood from ever getting proper jobs (“Good afternoon, I’m your mortgage advisor Petal Blossom Rainbow. Are you looking for a tracker or a fixed rate?”) while gasping at Lily Allen taking “retro chic” to a whole new level by christening her daughter Ethel.

If only more people would take out their quirky little whims on animals rather than children (my cat’s full name is Delilah Babydoll Mohan) rather than naming their children as if they were pets (Nicole Richie, mother of Sparrow Midnight Madden, I’m talking to you).

"At the rate all these celebs are going, it’s the poor blighters named James and Laura who’ll probably sound like freaks to their classmates."

After all, pets don’t get bullied at school. Children do – although, at the rate all these celebs are going, it’s the poor blighters named James and Laura who’ll probably sound like freaks to their classmates.

But it’s not just celebs. The other day, a little girl tripped over my feet as I queued up to pay at a south East London supermarket, until her mum screamed at her: “MIAMI! GET OVER ‘ERE NOW!”. Imagine being called Miami but going to school in Penge.

I can’t work out if that’s better or worse than being called Scotland and going to school in Hollywood…

Isabel Mohan (@Isabel_Mohan) is a freelancer writer and showbiz commentator.

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