My husband and I are both high-school teachers of English Literature. As it happened, the year of the birth of our first daughter we each had a Shakespeare play on our syllabuses - his 'Othello' and mine 'Hamlet'.
All the way through the pregnancy we'd been led to believe we were having a boy - we'd asked the midwife and been told the image showed obvious little-boy parts, which she 'pointed out' to us! That in mind we'd decided on calling 'him' Vladimir Maddison.
When it actually came to the birth though, and those magic words 'It's A Girl' popped out of the obstetrician's mouth, we were absolutely gobsmacked! With no pre-thought ideas as to what to call our new little girl, we chose a first and middle name based on the only two we'd had on our minds all year - the heroines of our respective Shakespeare courses. Hence our first daughter's name; Desdemona Ophelia.
