Notebooks that carry nothing but their name
Personalised A5 vegan-leather notebooks, £17.99
Not every present needs a date on it. These put the person on the cover and nothing else, which is why they suit a new job or a first day as readily as a birthday: initials cut large with the full name beneath, or the flat statement that this book belongs to somebody in particular.
When a cover carries nothing but a name, the quality of the mark is the entire product. So it is not printed on: the initials are cut into the hide by a laser in-house, at the weight the letterforms were drawn. There is nowhere for a mistake to hide either, which is why the preview shows you the finished cover with the real name on it before you pay. Everything after that point runs as follows.
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The present for when there is no occasion
This page exists for the situations the rest of the shop cannot help with: a first day in a job, where a cover announcing a birthday would be odd; a leaving present from colleagues who like somebody without knowing them well; a graduate, a new starter, a godchild, or somebody who has just started writing things down and needs somewhere to do it. Because neither cover mentions a date, a reason or a relationship, neither one dates: the notebook is still correct in five years, which is more than can be said for anything with a year on it.
Initials, or the plain statement of ownership
The two covers here are not the same present. The monogram cuts the initials large and sets the full name beneath, which is the smarter of the two and reads as something chosen. Property of does the opposite and says only that the book belongs to a particular person, which is the one to pick for somebody who would rather not be given a card either. Both are about the object rather than the sentiment, and that is a real category of present: the engraving is there to stop the notebook wandering off, and for a lot of people that is exactly the right amount of feeling.
How many letters, and which ones
Two or three initials sit best. Four begins to look like an institution, and one on its own looks like a mistake unless the name underneath is doing the explaining. Decide whether you are using a middle initial before you type, because a monogram that includes one and a signature that does not will look like two different people. For a married name in transition, or for anybody whose surname might change, initials age better than a full name. And check how the person actually writes their name: a shortened first name on the cover and a formal one on the monogram is the commonest way this goes slightly wrong.