Ron Smith was adamant his newborn son would be named after a Swindon Town player… 

Despite purchasing a ticket for the play off final I didn’t travel to Wembley last Sunday. For weeks I’d been struggling to decide whether to go as our baby was due 29th May. In the end the decision was easy, as no sooner had I woken that morning, my wife was having contractions. In the end, my Sunday was an entirely joyful experience as our son was born at 19.28 – as the final whistle sounded on a 4-0 defeat. Then the struggle to decide a name for him…

After the mid-pregnancy scan it was very clear that my wife and I were expecting a boy. Immediately my mind was racing away with the potential baby names and these all had an origin from Swindon Town legends.

But no quicker had I started to suggest calling him Fraser, Digby, Don, Jan Aage….Smith etc then my wife put a stop to the nonsense with a “there’s no way you’re naming him after a Swindon legend!”

With a legend a ‘no’ that left a choice of mediocre or crap Swindon players which wasn’t too attractive – “Dad why am I called Jason?”…”Your mother was adamant you’d be given every opportunity to play for Swindon so we decided the name of Jason would inspire you to greatness…there were just too many inspirational left backs to choose from but we are captivated by this chap called Drysdale.”

So no legend, crap or mediocre players to inspire the name, I moved onto the potential for my son being named after the average Swindon Town player; specifically the most popular first name of all.

With the help of Richard Banyard of the fantastic swindon-town-fc.co.uk the most popular first names of all players who’ve made an appearance for Town in our history have been collated…

Using the common name, William is the most popular first name (with 58 players) through to Stephen and Arthur (16 players) just breaking into the top 20; 21st and with 15 players are named Mark. This list doesn’t include those who didn’t make an appearance, which if those names are added then John would be the most popular.

I have to admit, after compiling this list the names didn’t enthral me. We’re after something a little different and perhaps basing the choice on popular names wasn’t the right approach after all.

Then my mind turned to Wembley and the play off final. Perhaps one of the squad could deserve the honour of my son being named after him after scoring the winning goal? We know how that all turned out and there’s certainly no inspiration, except for potentially calling him ‘Preston’ – as was suggested to me by many on social media last weekend.

So I gave up with the idea of naming him after a Swindon Town player. I couldn’t choose one, plus my wife had a better name in her mind…

Welcome to our newest STFC fan – Ethan Jamie Smith!

At least, in terms of Swindon Town FC, his name is unique. No Swindon player has ever been called Ethan so perhaps he’ll be the first…and a left back?