I was reading an article recently about the popularity of certain names, which in turn took me to the website of the Office for National Statistics. It intrigues me how some names drift into and out of usage. When I was at school, you'd no more have found a kid in my class called Jack than you would Percy or Reginald, and yet now it's been the most popular name for boys for a decade or more. Then again the boys' list makes for odd reading throughout. I have a son called Gabriel, which has crept up from 100 in 2004 to 92 in 2007. That still makes it less popular than Taylor, Hayden, Ashton, Bailey and Harley (the top London advertising agency) which come in at 88, 81, 76, 70 and 69 respectively. Bailey? Who calls a baby Bailey? Is there some celebrity of whom I'm unaware called that? My own name, on the other hand, which was third in popularity in 1964 (the nearest statistic I could find, four years before I was born but close enough to get a general idea) has recently drifted out from 74 in 2003 to 99 now. I like that - it increases the odds that my kids might pick it as an unusual middle name for their children. But what kind of world are we living in when names like Michael and Charles are less popular than Jayden (32)? Jayden?! What kind of stupid, made up, ludicrous name is that? (If you're reading this and your name is Jayden - and there are a lot of you, albeit probably all under five - please feel free to answer that.)

Part of the reason Gabriel may be sluggish is that, inexplicably, people struggle with it. You'd be amazed how many people - and I'm not talking a handful here but lots of people - can neither pronounce it nor spell it properly. He gets cards addressed to Gabrielle, from people who know him and know he is a boy, and it's pronounced like that all the time (football followers may have heard idiot commentators do the same with Gabriel Agbonlahor, who as an Englishman of Nigerian-Scottish descent I bet pronounces it the way I do). I just don't understand it. What's so hard about it? Nobody seems to struggle with Peter Gabriel! If only we'd gone with an old Biblical name.

My daughter, however, has a name which hasn't been in the top 100 in the last five years. It's a nice, normal name, one everybody knows, neither old-fashioned nor modern, and yet it seems nobody's using it. You'd imagine you'd have to call a child Sprocket or Fizzpop to not get into the top 100. It puts her below Lacey, Harriet, Skye, Maddison, Matilda, Georgia and Leah (which always looks to me like it should be pronounced to rhyme with yeah). Mind you, the name I wanted to call her - Rachel - has dropped out of the top 100 as well. There are now more Lexies and Shannons than Rachels coming into the world. It's enough to make you read the Daily Mail.

[Don't worry, nothing is enough to make me read the Daily Mail.]