“We’re calling her Rowe Patricia Penton.”

My youngest daughter Sophie had just given birth to a beautiful little girl. Since we’re talking about names I should tell you that Sophie’s full name is Sophie Jean Peyton. ‘Sophie’ after a great vaudevillian entertainer Sophie Tucker and ‘Jean’ the name of Sophie’s grandmother (my wife Mac’s mom).

All parents agonize over the naming of their children, it is a rite of passage and can be overwhelming such is the sense of responsibility. And for Sophie and her husband Jon it had been no different save for one thing; they had refused to let anyone know their name choice until the baby was born.

“Rowe Patricia Penton” she said in her gentle Sophie voice. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. ‘Rowe’ was my mother’s maiden name and ‘Patricia’ is Mac’s given name, ‘Patricia Ann”. What an honour. My mum died some time ago but I could feel her smile shining down on little Rowe, so honoured she would have been in that moment.

Names it turns out bind us together with imagined rope, connecting through the generations past and linking to generations future. Names can tell stories and braid generations together within a family.

My two sons, Jonathan Wynne Peyton and Tobias MacWynne Peyton are joined through the centuries with ten generations of Peyton’s who came before them. ‘MacWynne’ by the way, if the sharp eyed among you have noticed, is our nod to Mac’s family name, Macdonell. My brother Clive Stanley Wynne Peyton and I, Anthony Eric Wynne Peyton link through to Peyton males back through two and half centuries, all of whom have ‘Wynne’ in their names. I understand the obvious modern criticism that this reflected an embedded gender inequality but as with all things, change has been wrought and all that aside, I have always loved this link to those who came before me. Perfect strangers save for one common thread and with that thread, a tie that binds. And that’s what names do. It is what Sophie and Jon have done in naming their daughter ‘Rowe Patricia’.

Women have wrestled for as long as I can remember with the naming challenge getting married presents, not without understandable resentment. Losing one’s surname at marriage only to adopt another seems a significant, even unreasonable price to pay. Double barrelled names are inevitably time stamped and have always been cumbersome. Retaining your maiden name (apologies, I’m certain that description will change in short order) becomes equally challenging over time and the source of endless confusion at banks and borders with the endless bureaucratic appetite for name continuity. And generations of thinkers notwithstanding, we seem no closer to unravelling this ball of confusion. Which brings me back to ‘Rowe Patricia’.

Or ‘Alfred Wynne Weare Peyton’, the name of my youngest grandson whom we call ‘Freddy’. His name is a rich and meaningful, connected to both his mother Anya’s family (Weare) and his father Toby’s family. ‘Wynne’ continues to honour the lived history of those who came before, now an unbroken thread which will reach three hundred years through time. Not to mention, if I may, that it is a handle worthy of a Supreme Court Judge.

“All rise, The Honourable Mr. Justice Alfred Wynne Weare Peyton presiding.”

But I digress.

You’ll need to forgive me. I’m not even sure this is even vaguely interesting. I am just revelling in the moment, my newest grand daughter Rowe Patricia, safely swaddled in the arms of her young mother Sophie, just across the room from me. It’s the way I roll. It’s my happy place and now that I’m seventy-two I’m good with that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls and all those who otherwise identify, please welcome ‘Rowe Patricia Penton’.