The Wall Street Journal has a rather disturbing article about naming babies. The pressure that some people put upon themselves is frankly incomprehensible. All parents agonise over names a little, but it’s hard to be sympathetic to parents who hire consultants to brand their children as if their future lives can be reduced to products competing for supermarket shelf space.

Last fall, John Bentham, 36, a Las Vegas theater producer, and his wife, Shannon, 29, who runs a nonprofit foundation, says they felt “enormous pressure” to find a strong-sounding boy name. “I wanted a name that would look good on a marquee or a political banner,” Mrs. Bentham says. Though they had agreed on the letter “j,” none of the names they came up with — Jude, Julian, Jake, Jason, or John Jr. — seemed original enough. They hired Ms. Walker and Mr. Reyes, who produced an 11-page list of possibilities, including Jackson. In March, the Benthams welcomed little Jackson Dean into the world.

How can a parent put so much effort into a first name without knowing the slightest thing about the pedigree of the name Bentham itself? You could call the kid just about anything and it would look impressive on a political banner. The Benthams might have considered Jeremy, for instance. It even starts with a J.

I have to admit I do agonise over names. But not for my children — my wife and I had little difficulty in drawing up with a shortlist and then coming to agreement over them. Here’s some quick rules for confused parents: 1. choose a name you’ve heard before, not some random concatenation of power phonemes or a Biblical name drawn from an obscure chain of begats; 2. don’t use a weird spelling; stick to common variations; 3. only use an odd or obscure name if there is a family tradition or some philosophical purpose behind it, and in that instance give the poor child the haven of an unobtrusive second name; 4. make sure there aren’t any unfortunate associations, slang words, or dissonances created by any combination of shortenings, initials, or Spoonerisms (e.g., Shiloh Pitt). That’s it. Who needs a consultant?

What I agonise over is character names. They are difficult to get right. They have to be memorable without being ridiculous (unless you’re writing melodrama or parody) and ideally they give some clue to character without being flashing neon signs. As such I have two baby name books in my reference collection and I often search baby name sites, and for surnames there’s always the phone book. I don’t have a standard method of selecting character names. The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager is exceptionally good for names in historical context, with the proviso that it only goes back to 1880 and only applies to the US.

It may seem odd to be fixated on fictional names when the names of my children caused so little angst. But, you see, a fictional name is tied to a fictional character. Children, on the other hand, are real people with their own personalities and it is not in my power — nor would I want it to be in my power — to dictate their characters. The purpose of a child’s name is to be an identifying sigil and to be reasonably euphonious. That’s all. Fictional characters, on the other hand, are in my power, and a good name is part of the package. Captain Ahab and Queequeg, Yossarian, Ebenezer Scrooge and Josaiah Bounderby, Mowgli and Shere Khan, are all fictional characters whom it is impossible to imagine separated from the names created for them by their authors.

On the other hand, ruminating too much over character names is one of those awful self-distraction techniques beloved of writers. It probably doesn’t matter if your heroine is called Jane or Jemma. What makes Elizabeth Bennet one of the most endearing characters in English literature is her personality, not her milk-and-water name.