Cherie Blair's True Name

She may be recognised as Cherie Blair but her real name and the one that she was baptised with is Theresa Cara.

There was trouble with the priest because Gale Howard and Tony Booth, parents of Cherie, had picked the name Cherie to register the birth of their newborn.

However, the Roman Catholic child could be baptised only with the name of a saint. So a compromise had to be reached - and the Tony Blair's wife was christened Theresa. Cherie has revealed it in a previously unremarked passage in her controversial memoirs 'Speaking For Myself'.

A compromise was eventually reached and I was baptised Theresa Cara: Theresa being a bona fide saint and Cara being Latin for Cherie, the Daily Express quoted Cherie, as stating.

The mother of four even kept a bank account at her local Liverpool branch of Lloyds TSB in the name of TC Booth until 1997.

A friend insists Cherie's dual name is nothing unusual among devout Catholics. Her name has always been Cherie. It's just Catholic tradition to be named after a saint when you're baptised, the friend said. A spokesperson for Cherie declined to comment.