BBC yesterday listed its readers’ most ridiculed names with Maltese surname Sultana being in the top 25.

A certain Leonard Sultana, who lives in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, said it was difficult growing up with the name and his brother changed a couple of schools to avoid bullying. As a child, he vowed he would change it the second his grandparents died – he didn’t want them to know how difficult it was growing up with it.

He writes that “originating from Malta, the name is an incredibly common one with no stigma (it doesn’t have the feminine edge to Sultan as carried by the name elsewhere in the world), to have it transposed to the UK where jibes and insults are racked up in the multitude meant a trying childhood for my brother and I”.

As a young man, his brother became physically able to dissuade bullying while Leonard tried to make light of his surname first, undercutting any attacks and becoming defensive.

In his early-30s, he became comfortable with it although he felt especially guilty when he bestowed it on his wife, two years ago. His dilemma is what to eventually tell his children.

Among the readers’ most ridiculed names are Cockett, Woolfson, Jonny Large, Emily Cumming and Bill Cosham.