Of course the late Queen was upset about ‘Lilibet’ – if someone pinched my nickname I’d be appalled

Naming a child after somebody isn’t always the compliment we might think it is, writes Anne Atkins – especially when the name is intensely personal

If our offspring gave theirs one of our family fun-names… well, I hope I’d be polite enough to say nothing

Perhaps the most poignant quote attributed to Her late Majesty is: “I don’t own the palaces, I don’t own the paintings, the only thing I own is my name.” No surprises, perhaps, that the Queen is said to have been so upset by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to call their youngest daughter “Lilibet”, that she proclaimed: “And now they’ve taken that.”

That’s the thing about nicknames, you see: royal or not, public or not – they’re always deeply personal.

And I should know: it was the source of vexed family debate for months, when our eldest was pregnant: what was her baby to call us, the grandparents? Eventually, after much back and forth, we settled on “Annie” and “Hatman”.