A nurse in Basildon had to explain carefully to an Essex mother recently that Chlamydia might not be the ideal name for her daughter.

Many an unlucky child has carried the stigma of ill thought out combinations of names or initials. I went to school with a Theresa Green. It's quite simple. If your surname is House, you don't call your children Wendy or Maxwell. Condoleezza Rice may have had a burden to carry, but at least her befuddled parents didn't call her Pilau.

Naming a shopping centre involves a greater number of people. It appears that no one charged with finding the "mot juste" for Wycombe's exciting new development, which has the potential to transform our town centre, took the trouble to look for a name that celebrated or even reflected this area, its history and evolution.

Whilst I don't object to "Eden" with quite the same vehemence as others, nonetheless it does seem to me to be a typically bland, committee generated, half-hearted attempt to be safe and inoffensive. In practice, it has achieved neither of those objectives. Anyone under the age of 30 in Wycombe will associate "Eden" with the nightclub of that name, of which the "ChavTowns Website" (which I am sad to relate does feature Wycombe ) says of a local nightspot " of course it hasn't always been called "Time" it was once called "Eden", but the name had to be changed to shake off its awful image."

A somewhat perverse choice then, particularly in our ethnically diverse town when Eden is so strongly associated with Christian tradition?

Two minutes thought tells me that, say, The Beechwood Centre would have carried no unfortunate connotations and would have reflected Wycombe's chair making tradition. Or the Chepping Centre, which would echo the historical name of the town and sounds like Shopping Centre. Or the Wye Centre. Even the project name "Phoenix" had more positive overtones.

It might perhaps have been more constructive too, in developing community support to have had more public debate, or even a competition, for a name. Instead, the developers, Stannifer, employed brand consultants DS Emotion to come up with a name that would "instil a sense of vibrancy, aspiration, quality and fun". Oh dear! I remind you that a firm of brand consultants came up with Consignia for the Post Office.