TOM UTLEY: At least all those Garys and Noras who hate their names weren't known to their families as Tommy Townmouse!

TOM UTLEY: At least all those Garys and Noras who hate their names weren't known to their families as Tommy Townmouse! By TOM UTLEY FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 01:38 GMT, 8 November 2024 | Updated: 01:44 GMT, 8 November 2024 e-mail View comments When I reached the grand old age of 12, I put my foot down and insisted that from that moment on, my name would be Tom. Up until then, all my family and friends had called me Tommy (except for schoolmates, who called me Utley, Utters or Utterly Wet), and I had come to hate the name. Tommy seemed so.

.. well, it seemed so utterly wet, suitable only for toddlers.

It was almost as bad as Timmy, I thought. Nor did I think much of Thomas as an alternative, although it's the name on my birth certificate – as it was on my father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's, and possibly on those of generations of Utleys before them, now shrouded in the mists of time. Somehow Thomas also sounded drippy, conjuring up pictures in my mind of goody-goodies dressed in blue velvet breeches and frilly white shirts, like Little Lord Fauntleroy (who was actually a Cedric in the book, poor chap).

At the age of 12, Tom Utley put his foot down and insisted he wanted to be called 'Tom' No, Tom it would have to be – a solid, classless, decent British name (though like so many other decent British names, it comes from the Hebrew). It was a name everybody could spell and nobody could mock. The trouble was that it took some people an awfully long time to get.