We are sorry... to David and Victoria Beckham

Given that media apologies are all the rage today, The First Post would like to issue one of its own - to Victoria Beckham, erstwhile Spice Girl, hugely successful fashion designer, mother-of-four and wife of footballer David Beckham.

On July 11, we questioned why the Beckhams had named their new baby – their first girl - Harper Seven.

We wrote: "One of the few Harpers anyone could think of this morning was Harper Lee, the octogenarian author of To Kill a Mockingbird. But neither of the Beckhams is understood to be a big reader – except of magazines. It's possibly Victoria got the idea from Harper's Bazaar."

We are sorry.

It transpires that Harper Lee was indeed the inspiration. On his Facebook page, David Beckham now explains: "A lot of thought goes into our children's names and Harper was a name that we've loved for a long time for a couple of reasons.

"One reason is Harper's an old English name which we loved and one of the other reasons was Victoria's favourite book is To Kill A Mockingbird and the author was Harper Lee. It's a very strong, passionate book. That's where Harper came from."

As for the Seven bit, we wrote: "It could be inspired by July being the seventh month. More likely, it's a football reference: Beckham wore the number seven shirt as a midfielder for Manchester United and England."

Here it seems we were at least partly right - but once again we underestimated the Beckhams' more spiritual side.

"It was such an influential number throughout my career and a lucky number," says David on Facebook, "but that wasn't the main reason.

"The other reasons behind Seven was because it symbolises spiritual perfection, the Seven Wonders Of The World, seven colours of the rainbow and in many cultures around the world it's regarded as a lucky number." ·