What’s in a Name?

I’ve never liked my first name. Yvette. I’ve always wanted to have an ordinary name. One that people know how to spell would be good. And, after 56 years, there are some members of my family who still get it wrong. I just grin and bear it now because I learned a long time ago that there’s no point in correcting people. To remind them that my name begins with a ‘Y’ and not an ‘E’ – or even an ‘I’ – very rarely works.

I was in my early teens when I asked Mum where my name came from and she proudly told me the story of how she chose my name. In fact, it’s a story that she’s since repeated many times to my friends and all I can do is smile weakly or laugh along with them. She thinks it’s sweet. And, from the way that she tells it, I don’t think Dad had any say on the matter. Originally, it had been decided that I would be Sonia if a girl, or Nigel if a Boy. However, Mum felt that the name Sonia added to my then surname Stevens, would be ‘…too many s’s…’ (her words), and so she started to find an alternative.

A friend of my mum’s came up with the idea of where to get my name from. Mum worked in a hosiery factory, making socks, and worked with Molly. Molly bought my mum a baby gift. It was a pram bedding set – something that Mum used to refer to as a ‘layette’ – and the brand name was ‘Yvette’. Mum must have told Molly that she wasn’t sure about the name Sonia and so Molly suggested that the brand name would be perfect. Mum agreed with her and so, when mum found out that I was a girl, that’s what she named me. In later years my mum would proudly say that she had named me after a brand of blanket rather than a layette. To me either is embarrassing and doesn’t make it sound a romantic or sentimental reason, which was what I’d imagined as a young girl.

Because, before hearing the story, I had always thought that my name was linked to my maternal grandmother. Her name was Renee, and she had been born to Thomas and Kate. I knew that her name was of French origin and so I imagined that the reason I was given a French name (and spelt in the French way), was my mum acknowledging her mother – my grandma. I knew that there was no connection to names on Dad’s side of the family. Even though I was the first girl to be born in my dad’s immediate family since 1913, his mum was Edna. Definitely not French. Once I heard the blanket story, any dream that it had been a sentimental gesture was completely crushed.

And then I looked at the meaning of the name, which was another disappointment. It is linked to the Yew tree, which represents longevity and is traditionally the preferred wood to make bows from. So, my name means Yew or Archer. Again, not quite what I was hoping for. Although I can hope that the link to longevity might mean that I will live to a good age!

Mum also argued that the name is a good choice because it can’t be shortened. But I quickly found out that, children can turn any name into something that they can ridicule. So, by the time I started going to high school, I was known as Yeti. In a child’s mind, if you take the ‘v’ out of the name you get Yette and this was quickly turned into Yeti. Not a flattering name for someone who was not the slimmest girl in the class and only 5ft tall. Teachers didn’t help either. Often I would be called Y-Vet. One teacher, who obviously thought they were funny, would often say to me ‘Y-Vet your dog when you can take it to the doctors?’ He would say it loudly with the intention that others in the class would hear and they would join in with the laughing too. And, for some reason, even now people will say it. Perhaps they because they find it’s a useful way of remembering how to spell the name – they don’t seem to be laughing at me – but I still find it annoying, although I never tell them.

Some people can’t get the hang of my name at all. Often I am called Yvonne instead of Yvette. And for those who apologise when they realise their mistake, I simply smile or laugh it off. When I worked in telesales the phrase ‘Wide Range Engineering Services. Yvette speaking’, often had people thinking I was called ‘Suzette’. Like the crepes. The most awkward time was when I went on holiday with my husband about thirty years ago to Majorca. We met another couple at the bar one evening and, for some reason, we never formally introduced ourselves. So, we worked out – through conversation – the names of the other couple, but it soon dawned on me that they had started to call me Claire. They seemed to have worked out my husband’s name, but when I heard the question ‘What would you like to drink Claire?’ and realised that it was being addressed to me, I simply answered: “A gin and tonic please.”

The evening went on and still they were calling me ‘Claire’, and they carried on with it for the rest of the week. But the thing was that I hadn’t got the heart to correct them. And my hubby didn’t seem bothered by it either. It came to a point where we both found it funny. After all, if we’d introduced ourselves properly, it wouldn’t have happened. They were such a lovely couple, and we had some good evenings chatting with them and playing cards. Particularly because – as I remember – the hotel was in a remoter part of the island and there wasn’t much else to do in the resort after dark. Finally, after seven days of what was an okay holiday, we found ourselves on the bus back to the airport. And as we parted ways in the terminal, our new friend called back to me ‘Bye Claire! Lovely to meet you both!’. I agree, it had been a lovely meeting, but we haven’t kept touch. It was one of those holiday acquaintances that usually dies out when you get back home to reality.

But then the name Claire seemed to stick. I was working for an Engineering/Power Tools Supply company as a customer liaison assistant (more about that in a later blog) and had to make sales calls to regular customers. It was a good job that needed me to build friendly relationships with people. The customers were usually builders, or engineering companies and we had regular people doing their buying. One new account I was allocated had a nice guy who I would speak to on the telephone. As we got chatting, which always came before I took the order, he suddenly said laughingly, ‘I don’t like calling you Yvette. You remind me of my first wife. She was awful but you sound nice’. Of course I laughed with him. It was the nature of the job I did and so casually said to him, ‘why not call me Claire?’ And I told him the holiday story and the misunderstanding over my name.

And that was it. Any time that he called to put an order through or needed help with spares he would always ask for ‘Claire’. Of course, I had to let my supervisor and colleagues know what was happening in case his call came through on their phones, but they were happy to go along with it and, thankfully, there wasn’t another Claire in the company. My boss was also pleased about it. It kept the customer happy, and we regularly got some nice value orders. It was only when I went on maternity leave that my alter ego ‘Claire’ left the company. She never returned.

But being called an alternate name has recently been regenerated. I belong to a quiz team, and we successfully take part in a weekly quiz at our local. It’s a great atmosphere and I love it that I can call many of them my friends. When I started to get to know one of the bar staff I introduced myself, but she still would often forget what my name was. One evening she confessed to me that she ‘…just cannot get your name right’. She didn’t feel that the name matched my personality. I told her about ‘Claire’ and said that I would be happy to be called that, but she shook her head. Apparently that didn’t suit me either. So, we chatted, and I retold the story of how I got my name. When I mentioned my mum’s first choice of Sonia, she stopped me. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘You’re Sonia!’ And once again I find myself answering to a different name than the one that is clearly written on my birth certificate.

‘Yvette Stevens’. That’s what’s there in black and white. No middle name. Just a Christian name (or forename if you prefer), Apparently my mum didn’t think I needed any more names because Yvette ‘was enough on its own’. And I know that my grandma Renee didn’t have a middle name either, but I feel that she was an exception to the rule in the early twentieth century. When I was growing up, I often asked my friends what their middle names were. I was envious of them and constantly wished that I could have one. Of course, I now know that I could add a middle name if I wished. No one would stop me. But, at that time, I knew my mum would be offended and hurt if she believed that I was trying to change something that she felt she had put a lot of thought into.

At the age of about six or seven, my solution to the lack of a middle name was to christen my favourite doll ‘Louise’. I don’t know why I chose that name, it wasn’t anything to do with a book or TV programme. At that time all I read was Enid Blyton and none of the Famous Five or Secret Seven were called Louise. But I somehow felt that, if I could choose a name for me, that would be the one. And reflecting on it now; Yvette Louise has quite a nice ring to it. Don’t you think? However, now, it no longer seems important to me. When completing forms at least I have less to add than others when a full name is requested.

Now – over 50 years later – I’m still not keen on my name. Perhaps it’s the number of times I repeat myself when on a phone call or the way that it is mis-spelt or mispronounced as much now as when I was younger. Having recently started writing – and I hope that one day I might be a published novelist – I wonder if I should use a pseudonym. Louise Clare perhaps or even Sonia Clare? But then…

What’s in a name?

August 2025

Enjoy the Little Things…

…are the words written on the front of the notebook that I am using to write my ideas and drafts in.  It goes with me everywhere and is one of many that I am filling with my ideas, inspirations and musings. But it was these words that I spotted, as I sat down on the beach with the notebook on my lap and a sharp pencil. And set me thinking…

It was a lovely, hot, sunny day on the last day of June, and the day after celebrating my 34^th wedding anniversary. Quite an achievement some would say, but it hasn’t felt like that. To me, the word achievement means an element of challenge and struggle, but we’ve been lucky not to have encountered a lot of these. It doesn’t feel as long as 34 years and part of me still feels like the 22-year-old, who walked down the aisle and married her best friend.

Because that’s what we are. Best friends. And I know that my husband agrees with me. We have supported each other and shared with each other what our hopes and dreams are and have tried our best to make sure that each other’s dreams come true. I don’t think that either of us have ever had huge, unachievable ambitions. Most of mine were squashed by my mother at the age of sixteen (but that’s another story). And lots of my husband’s dreams were fulfilled when we moved from Leicestershire to Cornwall ten years ago. We finally left somewhere that’s the farthest point in England away from the sea to a place where there’s water everywhere. We live in a small port town called Fowey. Most people mispronounce its name, but you need to remember that you say ‘Foy’ – a word that rhymes with joy. And we both agree that moving here has brought us a lot of happiness and joy. My husband loves anything to do with being on the water. When I first met him, he was a keen windsurfer on our local reservoirs. As the years went by, he canoed and kayaked with the children and, since moving here from ‘up country’, has gone back to sailing little dinghies. Something that he did with his father as a child and teenager. Personally, I hate anything that involves boats smaller than the Isle of Wight Ferry, but I know for him it is relaxing and gives him a feeling of contentment..

So, I am sitting on the beach and writing. This is a rediscovered passion for me. Something that I haven’t done since about the age of sixteen. The place is peaceful and very quiet. There aren’t too many people about, as the schools have not yet broken up for the summer holidays. I listen to the waves on the shore and the seagulls crying out to each other. Perhaps giving each other directions of where next to swoop down and steal an ice cream or pasty. It’s a perfect day. We’ve paid the car park charge and it’s valid until 7pm, the dog is cool and shaded, lying in the pop-up sun tent that we used to use for the kids years ago, and my husband has donned his wetsuit and snorkel and gone off into the sea, exploring. He’s thinking about hiring a kayak for an hour after we’ve had lunch at the little beach bar. Later, as the day starts to cool and the shadows grow longer, we pack up and head to our favourite pub on the way home. It overlooks a harbour, and we sit outside with a drink and watch the world go by. The boats on their moorings are gently moving in time to the rhythm of the water, while we talk about our day and watch the sun linger lazily on the brow of the hill before slipping away and leaving a coral glow on the horizon.

What’s there not to enjoy about this life? We’re both happy and contented, doing what we like to do.

Enjoying the little things.

Changing Landscapes

This weekend I returned to my home village. The place where I was born and bred and lived for 47 years. Circumstances meant that I went to school there and still lived there after I got married. The only change in my life was when I moved house. Once with my parents when we moved from one end of the village to the other and then once from our first house that we bought as a couple, into a larger home once we had a family.

I have seen so many changes in the village. But the most significant is its expansion. I remember as a young child in the early 1970s looking out of my bedroom window and seeing the building site swallowing up the fields and regurgitating an estate with red brick boxes of different shapes and sizes. It wasn’t the first estate to be built around the neat and compactly arranged village centre, but it was another big one. And ironic that the last house we lived in before moving away, was one that I had watched being built.

There were already a couple of housing estates that locals always referred to by the name of the builders. My Nana always talked about the ‘Jelson’ estate or ‘Allen’s’, when she was retelling a village tale. I never thought of the estates like that because the street names on the older developments were themed, and I always knew where I was in the village by the names. One was an estate of tree names, another Scottish islands. A small development in the late 1960s commemorated (or commiserated) with the closing of the railway that went through the village. One of the road names was Beeching’s Close. Dr Beeching was the man who closed the line down. However, the developments built in the recent years have more obscure and random names. I have not yet worked out where they got the name Borrowcup from.

Over the last 10 years, since moving away, I return a couple of times a year to catch up with friends and family. And the expansion is now active once more. In the mid-1980s the local council agreed it that the village would be ‘squared off’ and the gaps of land would be filled by houses so that the village would be rectangular in shape. This was adhered to for about 10 years and then the planning applications started coming in again. And all of them were granted permission. The familiar landscape around the village has gone. The walks in the fields and along the public footpaths have disappeared under concrete and tarmac. And the couple of miles or so of green belt between the village and the city suburbs is getting thinner and thinner. How long will it be before the village is assimilated into urbanisation?

So I went back to my old home, and perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but another development of around 150 houses is now being built. I’ve googled a village map and, lo and behold, the ‘squaring off’ has failed, which means that now there are plenty of new gaps to be filled in. Googling the population, it has increased from around 4,000 residents in the mid-1970s to over 7,400 residents now. Almost double.

But the sad thing is that the amenities have not increased. 10 years ago, there was a newsagent at each end of the mile long village, and 2 or 3 convenience stores dotted around. Now only one newsagent remains, and a Tesco and Coop store sited at one end of the village. Not very convenient at all. Mind you, if you need a takeaway, there’s plenty of choice and you won’t ever go without a haircut!

Perhaps I’m being sentimental, but the whole atmosphere of the village now feels wrong. When I take the dog out for a walk and go around the old familiar streets (and the old village hasn’t physically changed that much), I feel uncomfortable and out of place. I don’t belong anymore. I meet up with friends and they all ask me if will ever move back and I don’t hesitate with my answer.

I now live in a little seaside town with a population of 2,500 people – a third of those living in the village – and there is a community there. People supporting each other, acknowledging each other when you pass them in the street rather than putting their heads down and walking on. We have the amenities we need.

So, would I leave that?

Never in a month of Sundays.

September 14 2025

Imposter Syndrome

This is a phrase that, until recently, I had never heard. Now, however, it seems to be used all too often. And now that I understand what it means; I find that I’ve started using it too. Particularly since I’ve begun to tell people about my writing and my completed novel. They ask me about when it will be published and the fact of the matter is that I don’t know. Perhaps never, now that I have seen the barriers put up by traditional publishers and the self-publishing route.

I went to a writing event. I go to these when I can and, usually, I have a great time mixing and chatting with like-minded people, all writing with the hope that one day they’ll get published or recognised. The event was supposed to give tips on how to get published, but it seemed to be more of a seminar on why I won’t get published. The speakers were all well-spoken – possibly middle class – professional women of a certain age. And much of the audience were women too, with less than a dozen men sitting there. The speakers were very confident, sure of themselves and able to promote their writing with ease. I at once felt out of my comfort zone. I felt that I wasn’t eligible to be there – although I tick some of the boxes – after all I am:

• A woman of a certain age.
• I consider myself as a professional (I qualified as a teacher).
• I can be well spoken (thanks to elocution lessons when I was a child that mean I can hide my Leicester accent).

But I am not middle class. My dad was a lorry driver and my mum a hosiery worker who stayed at home to look after me when I was little and then went back to work part time in a factory until she retired. I was the first in my family to go university and the first to then go into a profession.

After an hour – just before the interval – I was ready to leave.

I can get on with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. But it seemed like these ladies were from a different level of society to me. They were talking about investing money in self-publishing ‘…you have to be prepared to spend on average £2,500 to start…’ and, that it must be understood that writing is a business. ‘…you can’t just play at it…’ But that’s not possible for me. I must work. I have bills to pay, and I don’t have savings behind me. So, what’s the point in writing, if all that happens is that stories sit in folders on my laptop?

This event just reinforced my feeling that I am an imposter who writes ‘little stories’ that may amuse my family and friends. I call myself a writer but, in reality, how can I be? I don’t match the profile of those on stage, and I do not have the business acumen that I apparently need if I want to self-publish.

I met a lady in the women’s toilets during the interval, and we got chatting. She seemed to be like me, was possibly a similar age and talked like me (with a regional accent). She was the only person that afternoon that I felt an affinity with. I asked her if she was a writer. She smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders.

“I thought I was,” she said. “But, perhaps I should just say that ‘I write’. I’m feeling a bit of an imposter now if I call myself ‘a writer’.

I know exactly how she feels…

October 15th 2025