Names.
I wonder why my mum called me Emily.
Emily. From all the beautiful, multisyllabic, ethnic options she had access to as a Greek. I could have been a goddess, a witch, a mythical creature, mysterious with history as old as the earth itself. I could have been a saint or a Martyr from biblical times. I could have been life, an abstract noun, happiness…
Instead I got the second most common name for my birth year (after Chloe). A scientifically proven stamp of unoriginality.
I know an Emily could have never hurt my mum. I think about her thinking up all the possibilities at desk with swollen stomach. I wonder if it was something she’d secretly sworn to as a child, satisfying some innocent longing from a simpler age.
I’m not saying my name has ever limited me, if anything it provides the perfect blank canvas. It’s basic ‘Emily’, but where’s she really from ‘Emily’, what’s her last name again ‘Emily’. Accessible – anyone can be ‘Emily’ if they want to. I like that I’m named by the people that love me the most, and that has to mean something.
I’m tired now so I’m off, but as I lie down to sleep I rest easy knowing she didn’t call me Maria.
All the best,
Emily