View Message

History-obsessed child morphs into teenage and adult name nerd...
An early love of history shaped my naming style - at sixteen I really wished I was a Margaret like Margaret of Anjou, and I've always loved Elizabeth, Katherine, Eleanor/Helena/Helen, Marguerite and (gp) Jacquetta! I envied Caroline at school for her name, which reminded/reminds me of "crinoline" - it's still my favourite name although it is unusable with my surname, as is Lucy (which I first crushed on at six when I tried in vain to get my best friend at school to call me it instead of Louise) and I love it for its link to English Civil War heroine Mrs Lucy Hutchinson. I also like Biblical names, especially Miriam and Rachel. There was a Bronwen at school and I've always loved that - I used to think that if I ever had twin girls they'd be Bridget (I liked that ever since discovering it was the name of Oliver Cromwell's favourite daughter)and Bronwen. I've always hated names with no history behind them, Amber, Jasmine (I've found girls called Jessamine dating from the early 1800s though), and Saffron excepted!