Imagine how easy it would be to remember pupils names if they were all named with just one letter “A”, “B” and “C”, all the way to the end of the alphabet?

This might soon be possible in Sweden, where a couple has appealed to the Supreme Court to have the name of their son Q recognised. “We have even stranger names where we live,” they told Swedish newspapers.

When Rickard Rehnberg and Thitathorn Sukjit first appealed, judges ruled that Q was not a suitable name, claiming that Swedish law does not permit names consisting of just one letter.

But the couple, who named their child after the eccentric inventor from the James Bond films, said he had been called Q since birth.

“There is now a child who answers to the name of Q. What does Sweden gain by forcing him to take on a new name?” they told reporters.