INDIGO: a colour between blue and violet (violet-cobalt in budgerigars). According to New Age belief, indigo children represent a higher state of human evolution, strongly willed and highly sensitive.

Perhaps that's why Erica and James Packer called

their blessed first child, Indigo. But probably not. Maybe they just like the sound of the name; I do. Shortened to ''Indy'' as it inevitably will be... well that's different.

We parents have a lot to answer for sometimes when naming our offspring. So many pretentious names. you've only got to read the social pages of the weekend tabloids to cringe at the eccentric tags.

Tah-Leah. Kevina (the female form of Kev?). The cheesy name: Bree and a cutting board of variations. There was an artist called Stormie in the papers the other day, and what about SundayRose? Yet these all pale by Kiwi standards.

Judge Rob Murfitt of the Taranaki Family Court ordered a girl the subject of a custody battle to become a guardian of the court so her name could be changed.

Well, if you were a nine-year-old would you want to be called Talula Does The Hula from Hawaii? Talula plainly didn't as she never revealed it to any of her friends and was known simply as ''K'' (or is that Kay, Kaye, Kaey?). What were her parents thinking?

The judge cited other bizarre names he'd dealt with: Number 16 Bus Shelter (the conception venue for this unfortunate?), Midnight Chardonnay (the conception time and trigger?), Violence (egads!) and Benson and Hedges (twins, of course). For the first time in His Honour's experience, he'd even found a child bearing a text language name, O.crnia. However, as part of a parenting order, the mother was prepared to change it to Oceania. Stupid woman.

Such a name, said the judge, ''makes a fool of a

child and sets her up with a social disability and

handicap.''

Thankfully, we learnt from Brian Clarke, the registrar general of births, deaths and marriages, that some of the grotesque names forced on kids had not been officially registered.

These included Fish and Chips (pronounced

Fush end Chups in Wellington), Mower (no relation to Victor, we assume), Yeah Detroit, Stallion (the mind boggles), Twisty Poi (huh!), Keenan Got Lucy (or should that be lucky?), Sex Fruit, Spiral Cicada, Fat Boy (great start to life here) and Hitler.

And yes, all those Latin Americans named Jesus have a lot to live up to.