Bring Rosetta, Psiax and Bogman to the British Museum!
Spotted on the London Underground: a large pink poster that reads, "Get your baby something special from the British Museum. A Name." Below is a list of 50 names, from Abydos to Zenobia, by way of Faience and Nammu. Below that it says, "Of course, if you'd rather find a name that's special to you, why not take a wander round the British Museum for an hour or so? We're a short walk from Tottenham Court Road Tube, and admission is free, seven days a week."
The advert espouses a familiar philosophy of modern museum-going: the notion that culture, like a cat de-worming pill, needs to be secreted in a tasty ulterior motive before the general public will swallow it. Come for the restaurant, stay for the lecture on medieval metalwork. But this campaign is bizarrely specific, targeting anxious parents-to-be worried that their prospective list of christian names may be insufficiently exotic. Has the museum spotted a weak link in its visitor demographic? Are they trying to attract the prenatal crowd? They are, admittedly, a lot quieter than the post-natal crowd, although when parents are stuck for a name it's often because they've used up their favourites on previous offspring who might well be in tow.
It would be nice, one imagines, to be able to drag little Rosetta, Psiax and Bogman round the museum when they're a bit older and show them the random and meaningless way you chose the names that will embarrass them for a lifetime. Being full of weird names, however, is not a characteristic specific to the British museum. Any museum, gallery or library will serve the same purpose. Of course, of you're heavily pregnant you may just want to get out of the rain and sit down for a few minutes, in which case you can just call the twins Latte and Exit and be done with it.
