What's in a name?

Yesterday saw me at my mother and baby group again. In HK, where child birth is doctor-focused and most expats go private, all the care given is up until, and through, the birth with very little aftercare. I was discharged with no follow up required nor in place other than the business card of a pediatrician and, when I asked, instructions to have Eve's next jabs at six weeks. No health visitors, no advice to have baby weighed or checked on. When one considers the support you get in the UK, this is quite shocking.

Therefore, the type of women who make the effort to find and then join a mother and baby group tend to be a bit more feisty than the norm, and a bit more outgoing, Most are expats or overseas born Chinese (without a family support network we find our own) and if they do not intend to go back to work, all are well educated and previously had good jobs.

This social microcosm of HK life is nowhere better seen than in the names of the babies at the group, which are a sign of the current fashion amongst middle class expats in HK. Boys ' names are all unusual and include Oscar, Nathaniel, Orlando and Byron. The girls' names are very traditional, with Margaret and, of course, Eve. The seems very consistent and I am not sure where this fashion for unusual boys names has sprung from, and why girls are not similarly named.

Another friend of mine has a son called Jett, and today Eve and I are visiting my friend P and her newborn son, Bart.