Leader comment: Why naming your child Jack is like calling him Nigel

In 20 years' time, Scotland will face what is now an unavoidable and damaging crisis of identity.

Jack Shepherd, 10, with four-month-old Jack Capes-Carr at The Children's Library in Edinburgh.

No, this is nothing to do with independence, it’s about how tens of thousands of young men will all have the same name – Jack.

Quite how one name has topped the leaderboard for most popular baby boys’ names in Scotland for an astonishing 10 years is hard to fathom.

A whole generation will find themselves being known forevermore by nicknames of potentially dubious good taste just to help differentiate them from their six friends, all called Jack.

The taste for uniformity seems to be spreading with Olivia the number one name for girls for the second year in a row.

But parents considering Jack or Olivia as a name for their newborn child may wish to consider the fickle nature of popularity. Our favourite names tend to be cyclical.

The current flavour of the month – or, sorry, decade – will eventually become uncool in the playground.

So while Olivia and Jack may sound great today, in the future they may acquire the same ring as Doris, Maureen, Nigel or Clive.