What's in a name?
Toby Young
Until last week, I thought I'd persuaded my fiancee of the merits of a traditional church wedding. On 21 July, as she walks down the aisle on her father's arm, the organist will be playing Here Comes the Bride, the best man will be searching frantically for the ring and my father will be snoring gently in the front row. After the priest has pronounced us 'man and wife', we'll join 130 of our friends and relatives for a reception in a marquee in her parents' garden and at midnight we'll bid everyone a fond farewell and speed off into the night in my Skoda Fabia. OK, the Skoda's a departure from tradition, but the rest of the day will be strictly by numbers.
However, last Sunday Caroline dropped a bombshell that revealed our marriage won't be quite as conventional as I'd hoped. After we're married, she announced, she won't be changing her name to Young. On the contrary, she wants me to change my name to Bondy, which is her surname. 'But sweetheart,' I replied, not taking this terribly seriously, 'don't you want to be described as "The Honourable Mrs Toby Young" when our wedding appears in Bystander?'
She gave me a look which indicated I'd have to come up with something a lot better than that if I wanted her to change her mind. Apparently, she was in deadly earnest. I gently pointed out that I needed to keep my name for professional reasons, that as a journalist I had become known as Toby Young. If I changed my name to Bondy it would be like starting again from scratch. At a stroke, I'd lose all the brand equity I've built up in my byline.
'You've become known as Toby Young,' she said. 'Who to? Your cleaning lady?' In fact, my cleaning lady thinks I'm called Terry, but I didn't remind Caroline of that since it would only have strengthened her case. I suddenly found myself in the awkward position of having to convince her I was better known than she thought I was, a case it's impossible to make without sounding like a complete ass. At one point, thoroughly discombobulated, I made the mistake of claiming that 'everyone' reads my Spectator column. She leapt on this. 'Everyone,' she repeated, incredulously. 'OK, why don't we go outside right now and conduct a straw poll on Shepherd's Bush Road. We'll stop people at random and see whether they make a point of reading your Spectator column every other week, because, let's be honest, it's not a weekly column is it? This column, for which you're world famous, is in fact a fortnightly column. If you're under the impression that everyone reads it, I'm afraid you're in for quite a shock.'
Did I tell you that Caroline's at law school? No? I just thought I'd mention that. She then made what, in her lawyerly way, she thought of as a major concession. She offered to drop the 'y' from Bondy, so I could become Toby Bond.
'That's quite a catchy byline, isn't it?' she pointed out. 'Much better than Toby Young, I would have thought.' But darling,' I objected, 'if I change my name to Bond all my friends will think the whole thing is just an elaborate ruse so I can introduce myself to people as 'Bond, Toby Bond', in a pathetic attempt to sound like 007."Yes,' she agreed. 'They probably would think that.'
We discussed some of our other options. We could combine our names and become Mr and Mrs Young-Bond, but the trouble with that is we'd look like a couple of sad social climbers who are under the impression that a double-barrelled name sounds posher than a single-barrelled one. Admittedly, almost anything sounds posher than Young, but you see my point. I also didn't fancy introducing myself as 'Young-Bond, Toby Young-Bond', as I thought it would make me sound like James Bond's little brother, 003-and-a-half. 'OK,' said Caroline with an air of finality, 'you can choose whatever surname you want and I'll take it so long as it isn't Young. There's just no way I'm changing my name to yours.'
So there it is. Unless I can talk her round, I have six months to come up with a new surname. I've already suggested 'Younger', but that's been vetoed. Does anyone have any ideas? Answers on an email postcard please to tyoung@infohouse.com, with a bottle of champagne going to the person who comes up with something we both like. But please, don't suggest `Ornottobe', 'Jug' or `Le Rone'. I had quite enough of those jokes when I was at school. Perhaps 'Johnson' is the way to go. At least then I'd have a chance of becoming editor of The Spectator, and wouldn't have to base my claim to world fame on this paltry, fortnightly column.
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