Elizabeth

Some names are a single outfit. Elizabeth is an entire wardrobe. Underneath sits a serious old Hebrew name meaning "my God is an oath", but what most parents actually fall for is its sheer versatility, this is a name your daughter can grow into, rearrange and reinvent for the whole of her life without ever once outgrowing it.

Consider the options. She can be a brisk Liz in a meeting, a playful Lizzie at the weekend, a gentle Beth at bedtime or a poised Eliza when she fancies something with a touch more swish. Few names offer this much room to become whoever you turn out to be, it is less a name than a starter kit for an entire personality, batteries very much included.

Small wonder it endures. Elizabeth holds firm at number 16 in the United States and stays remarkably steady the world over: number 23 in Canada, number 47 in Argentina, number 62 in England and Wales, number 64 in Mexico City, number 81 in New Zealand and number 99 in Australia, before thinning out to number 238 in Catalonia. It is the sort of name that never quite tops the chart and yet never leaves it either, the very definition of a classic.

It has, of course, done rather well for itself down the centuries. Two English queens have worn it: Elizabeth I of England and, for a genuinely remarkable seventy years, Elizabeth II. It reaches back further still to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke. When a single name has anchored that much history, you can be fairly confident it will comfortably weather a few school registers.

It keeps stately company on a sibling list, too. Pair it with William, Alexander, Catherine or Victoria and you have a set that sounds like it could open Parliament in the morning and then host a very good dinner in the evening.

What is easy to overlook, amid all the grandeur, is how gently it wears in daily life. For every state occasion the full form conjures, there is a Beth curled up with a book or a Liz laughing in the kitchen. It is a name that can be as ceremonial or as cosy as the day happens to demand, which is precisely the kind of range you want from something your child will answer to for eighty-odd years.

So there it is: regal, ancient and endlessly adaptable. The only snag is that all that flexibility means yet another name that stubbornly refuses to be an easy no. That is the joy and the agony of the whole business rolled into one, the genuinely good ones never make the decision simple, they just sit there being quietly wonderful while you dither. Right, then. Who is next on the list?