When my brother, who is about to become a first time father, asked me the other day what I thought of various baby names, I passed on to him a piece of advice that was given to me when pregnant. "Don't ask other people for their opinions on names because you can be sure that everyone will have an opinion, just present the baby with the chosen name and everyone will accept it."

"Meet our daughter Fifibelle."

 "What an unusual name!" will be the more usual response, rather than "why did you give your child a name more suited to a dog?' (although you can be sure they are thinking it!!!).

Naming a child is a huge responsibility, having a significant impact on the child from the start. While some parents follow tradition by naming their children after grandparents or heroic figures, others go to great lengths to find unusual names, ones with deep meanings or just names that children won't get teased about. For us it was important that the names would be pronounced the same in Bulgarian, English and German. And so we all have some criteria when choosing our offspring's name.

Movie stars and the like often go to extremes, and keep us entertained, by choosing embarrassingly weird names for their children. Remember Frank Zappa's daughter Moon Unit or Bob Geldoff's daughter Peaches?

Maybe they didn't get teased at school because their parents were famous.(For fun look up: www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/ )

It would appear that the British and American authorities are particularly liberal in what they allow parents to name their children. When my son was born in the UK we had no trouble registering him as Oliver Sanatani Vlaytchev. When we, however, applied for his German citizenship we were informed that he could not have Sanatani as a middle name as this is a surname and we first had to prove that it was an acceptable first name in India. So we ended up dropping the Sanatani. For the Bulgarians there was no discussion; the child's middle name was Todorov (after his father) and so our son has three different variations of his name on his birth certificate. I know from friends that they had similar difficulties trying to register a Norwegian name with the Belgian authorities, although ultimately successful. You would think that in this day and age of cross cultural marriages and globalisation there would be more tolerance at least for international names.

Our names are our identity; who would we be without our names?

What makes people want to change their names? Maybe a bad association or if the name is too common? One girl at school changed her name from Jane to Louise, because she felt Jane to be too common. Only problem was, none of us could remember to call her by her new name. It would have been better to have waited with the name change till she went to university. It is generally easier to change one's name or drop a nickname when one changes environment.

Kabalarian philosophy claims that our names actually shape our character and our future. On their website (www.kabalarians.com) you can analyse your first name using the mathematical principle. I was amazed at how close their description of my character was just from my first name! The same analysis also comes up for other names of course! This is just for fun and they advise parents choosing baby names that there are other factors such as the surname and the birth date that will shape the child's future. Likewise the idea of changing your name to have more business success sounds very alien to me and not necessarily something I would endorse.

Personally, I love my name. It is very special to me. It was chosen for me by my Indian grandfather. Its origins are in Buddhism and although it is not uncommon in West Bengal it continues to be an unusual name in international circles.

My family name, Sanatani also has a little story to go with it.

Many years before I was born, my grandfather Rashvihari Das, a professor of philosophy, decided to change the family surname. The name Das reflected a relatively low caste status, something my grandfather did not want to be held against his family in a caste-conscious society. My great-grandfather was Sanatan Das and so my grandfather renamed all his siblings and their offspring Sanatani (caste unknown!).

Having an original or unusual name is often a blessing. Once you've overcome the initial teasing or the obstacle of spelling your name, you will discover it later in life to be a great ice- breaker at cocktail parties. The funniest anecdote I have, is when at a business luncheon in London (many years ago) one of the other guests present commented on the fact that he once knew a girl called Paromita. "Oh, really! Was she Indian?" I asked. He couldn't be sure. A little while later he asked me: "Do you have any relationship to Vienna?"

 "Yes, I grew up there, my parents live there."

"Oh so then you are the Paromita I used to know!"

(We had briefly known each other as teenagers.)

I used to always pride myself on the fact that there was only one Paromita Sanatani! That was until my cousin decided to marry a girl called Paromita. So now there are two of us (although she can use the title Dr in front of her name) and this winter we met for the first time. We both immediately got on well and felt that sharing the same name gave us a special bond. I guess according to Kabalarian philosophy we must be similar in character….

And as I finish writing this piece I hear that my little niece has arrived safely in this world, six weeks early. Guess what? My brother and his wife have not yet agreed on a name!