Would a rose smell as sweet….well, whatever it was that Billy was going on about there.

Alan Hamilton in The Times looks at the demography of first names. Culled from The Time’s own subscription and web registration details Alans earn less than Jeremys and both vastly more than Freds and Dorothys.

Well, yes, but perhaps a little more could have been made of this point?

Dad, you’re forgiven; at least you didn’t call me Fred. But then that
name fell from favour in the 1920s, when even this old Alan wasn’t born.

There’s a well known cycle to names. Every telemarketing company in the country knows the point (well, those that don’t quickly go bust doing consumer calling campaigns). A name might start in a certain social class, say, Albert, Frederick, (oooh, say, 19 th century Royals) and then 50-70 years later, a couple of generations, it is a solidly working class name (Albert, Fred around what, 1910, 1920?) which leads us to having Freds in 2007 on average in retirement living in bungalows in the South West.

Of course there are exceptions and there are also distinct ethnic and even religious patterns (the Catholic insistence that a name must be a saint’s name, there’s an awful lot more Muhammeds around than there were early 20th century Royals with the name) but that cycle of names is a pretty good predictor of age.

You tend not to try and sell Club 18-30 holidays to Alberts and Freds and you’re not going to get all that far flogging stair lifts to Chelseas and Chantelles.