Rebekah Brooks resigns over her name

Rebekah Brooks, News International chief, has resigned over the stupid, annoying spelling of her first name (which most people would spell Rebecca), saying she no longer wants to be “the focal point of the debate”.

Though both spellings of the popular girls name are correct (they both appear in The Bible after all), the spelling Rebekah appears at first to be either a spelling mistake or the name of a budget sporting goods manufacturer.

There are many examples of common names with unusual spellings: Jakub, Daizie, Leesa and Mhaxx are but a few in what has become a worrying trend. Presumably parents like a traditional name for their child but want to make him or her stand out from the crowd with a unique spelling of the otherwise dull name. Unfortunately what comes across is a lethal mix of pretentiousness, trashiness and dyslexia.

It’s hoped that Rebekah Brooks will change her name by Deed Pole to the better known spelling of her name, Rebecca. “We support her as she takes this step to clear her name,” James Murdoch said earlier today.

She will find the transition difficult. In 2003, on her first day as The Sun’s first female editor she gleefully ran a picture of topless page three model Rebekah Teasdale with the controversial caption ‘Rebekah from Wapping, 22’. If it was a victory for Rebekahs everywhere, it was a hollow one, for the name would come to haunt her, culminating in the shocking revelations of the past week, and her resignation earlier today.

Little else of interest is known about the flame-haired Rebekah, 43, except that she married Eastenders thug Ross Kemp purely for the chance to beat him up: in 2005 – the same time The Sun was running a campaign against domestic violence – she was arrested for assaulting her then-husband.