how do women named Lolita cope in a society where their name is laden with such potential offence it cannot be attached to items of furniture?

mostly they just called me 'Lolly Eater'

Ms Jones' parents were from Latvia, where Lolita is a popular girls' name. There is a Latvian Name Day for Lolita - 30 May - and Ms Jones still receives cards from her Latvian relatives on that day.

The shifting fortunes of the name Lolita can be seen in its declining popularity. According to the US Social Security Administration (SSA), the popularity of Lolita peaked in the US in 1963, when it was the 467th most popular name for newborn girls. It dropped after that, and has not made an appearance in the SSA's top 1,000 names since 1973.

"Monica is a good example in the US. The name had been inching up and was at number 79 in 1997. The Monica character in Friends helped make it popular. But in 1998, after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, the name slipped to 105 and went down even further the next year, never to recover.

"It was just too linked to odious qualities: abuse of power, sexual degradation... lots of things you wouldn't want connected with your innocent newborn daughter."

The name Katrina has also declined in popularity in the US following Hurricane Katrina.

In Britain, the name Myra declined in popularity following the Moors Murders. And names such as Adolf and Judas are now extremely rare. One man who has struggled more than most with his moniker is Lucifer Howse, a 33-year-old alternative medicine practitioner in Brighton.

Mr Howse only discovered his true first name in his late teens - prior to that, his family called him Luke for short. "I had a real crisis when I found out my name was Lucifer. I went off the rails", he says.

When he picked up his driving licence a few years ago, the woman behind the counter barked Biblical phrases at him and shouted: "It's you. I know it's you."

strange names can sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies. "A study has shown that kids with a name like 'Lethal' are more likely to grow up to commit crimes - though of course parents who would name their child 'Lethal' are probably not aiming to be class mom."

But, she says, more exotic, even formerly "outrageous" names - such as Juno and even Jezebel - are making something of a comeback. "Somehow these names seem ready for the playground again."