I once knew a Botswanan mechanic called Adolph. His mother had been misinformed.

I’ve just had twins. Well, technically, the Blonde has had twins. We’ve had twins. I’d been wondering about whether to share that with you, partly because there’s a natural paternal reticence, but also because there’s a stone-chiselled list of information that no first-person columnist should ever burden the reader with. It includes: “My house was burgled, and it’s high time something was done about the penal system. I don’t want a trauma counsellor; I want The Sweeney”; “The length of time I spent on hold to the call centre — it’s high time something global was done about corporate accountability and customer services”; and “My au pair just got deported — it’s high time something was done about people trafficking and the misery of economic refugees.”

Babies and their winsome, heart-warming stories are right at the top of the list. But I mention them because they’ve radically changed the way we eat (the Blonde has become an omnivore Pac-Man; you have to keep your hands out of the way), and because it’s an easy way to get the birth announcement into the paper for free.

The answers to all your kind questions are: yes, all fine; one of each; just under 6lb; masses and masses, black; yes, she is, both at once, and it does look very charming; not too bad actually, a couple of hours a night; yes, we do, she’s a treasure; no, absolutely not, I think it’s barbaric. And then there’s the big one — taxonomy, the daunting responsibility of writing a name at the top of someone else’s blank page. A thoughtless choice can do lifelong damage — except it’s never thoughtless, always premeditated.

We don’t name our children; we name our prejudices and pretensions. In the 1990s, 228 babies in America were named Unique. Only one was called Uneek. And one, Uneque. And one, Uneqqee. Someone has sent me the story, culled from the book Freakonomics, of Robert Lane, who had two sons. One, he called Winner; the other, Loser. Loser became a detective sergeant in the New York Police Department. His mates called him Lou. You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you? Winner had more than 30 arrests for burglary and violence. I wonder if his friends called him Michael.

It is an irrevocable rule that names look upward but move downward, bouncing off the social ladder and multiplying as they go. Caesar started off as an emperor god and ended up as a bull terrier. The exception to the rule was a brief moment when hoorays called their girls Victorian maid’s names, with a sort of Thatcherite, “no such thing as society” irony. Fifteen years ago, I was in a supermarket with my firstborn. The woman at the checkout asked what the little girl’s name was. Flora, I said. She looked horrified. “How could you name that sweet kid after a low-fat spread?” I glanced at her lapel badge. She was called Princess.

In America, there is a growing divide between white and black names. Forty per cent of black girls in California are given a name that not one of the 100,000 white girls born that year gets. A large number of them are given names that nobody else has ever got, whereas most white girls will be given names that are quite common among other white girls. The more black a name is perceived to be, the tougher the socio-economic road ahead. By popularity, the five whitest girl’s names in America are: Molly, Amy, Claire, Emily and Katie. The blackest are Imani, Ebony, Shanice, Aaliyah and Precious. For the honky boys, it’s Jake, Connor, Tanner, Wyatt and Cody. And for the dusky lads, DeShawn, DeAndre, Marquis, Darnell and Terrell. Those lists just go to prove that Americans shouldn’t be trusted with naming anything further up the evolutionary ladder than a cocktail.

This week’s restaurant is called Magdalen, which is one of those pathetically infuriating two-faced names that looks one thing and sounds another — a phonetic tongue-trap to trip up and belittle foreigners and those who didn’t have a classical education. They could have called the restaurant anything — why hook it with this smirky, leather-bound, ivy-clad handle? Never mind; I’ll just call it Maggie’s. It’s opposite a derelict pub called the Antigallican, which means “French-hater”.

Maggie’s is another of the slow, considered English-revival restaurants that have caught the inspiration of St John (or Sinjun, as Giles Coren calls it) and sauntered off with it. This could be called the East End school of cookery, as it came from around the old London markets. It’s not so much a renaissance of indigenous grub as a born-again middle age. The menu here is a familiar list of cheaper cuts and earthy, rib-sticking dishes that come without airs and graces, but with a sturdy, yeoman decency.

I took the chap who edits this page. We started with a skate, chicory and caper salad and a rabbit terrine, both impeccably well made — particularly the terrine, which could have gone on a lecture tour to inspire lesser pâtés. It was a minutely judged combination of taste and texture and solid meaty beauty.

Next, we had cotechino with lentils — which is about as indigenous as a Chelsea-Arsenal football match, but has a sort of English feel to it, in a Lombardian way, like trotter and dried peas — and a slow-cooked shoulder of lamb with laver bread, which was everything a slow-cooked shoulder of lamb could possibly aspire to be, gussied up with Welsh seaweed slime.

Puddings in these new English restaurants usually do a little jig. Unusually, these were only B+. My lemon cheesecake with lemon sorbet was remarkably like those things that Sloaney girls used to make for dinner parties out of Philadelphia cream cheese, lemon jelly and digestive biscuits. The sorbet tasted like something that ought to be put in the washing machine with the delicates.

But, make no mistake, this is a very good restaurant — an estimable restaurant. The bill was £35 each, including a glass of wine. Service isn’t included. Tips are distributed by the staff. The waiters were well informed and efficient.

The room is plain, with uncomfortable bentwood chairs and walls the colour of blood clot and kidney fat. There’s nothing you could possibly point your finger at and accuse of being designed. In this wholesome-English-food revival, there is a thick-tongued reticence about displays of vanity or unnecessary elegance. The dining rooms are marked by a utilitarian modesty.

As is the food. It’s a style that has all the merits and virtues of a softly spoken craft: careful, handmade victuals, more physics and skilled labour than inspiration and magic. It’s food fit for its purpose of wholesome enjoyment, cooking that would blush at being called art or being accused of having a soul. For all its worthiness and honesty, I sometimes feel it lacks an élan, a panache, things there aren’t English names for.

The twins, by the way, we’ve labelled Edith and Isaac.

152 Tooley Street, SE1; 020 7403 1342

Lunch, noon-2.30pm, Tues-Sat; dinner, 6.30pm-10.30pm, Mon-Sat

Rated 4/5

Ratings: 5/5 Lloyd's name; 4/5 The name of the game; 3/5 What's in a name?; 2/5 My name is Earl; 1/5 My name is mud

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