Unless other people keep mispronouncing it or spelling it wrong, I've always thought that most of us don't think about our names very much. In fact, even as someone who has spent my life being called Anne or Anne-Marie, I don't think about my name very much. I kind of take it for granted.
But according to a new survey, 87% of Irish people consider their names to be "very important" in their lives. And we feel more strongly about our names than anyone else in Europe – well, north west Europe. The survey was conducted on people aged 16 and over in Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland and the UK, and in comparison with these countries, the Irish were most likely to say that their given name makes them feel happy (81% of us said it did), proud (76%) and confident (72%). And over a third (37%) said that their name has had an impact on their life, with 89% of them saying the impact was positive.
The survey was conducted on behalf of Coca Cola as part of their Share a Coke campaign - which is basically those Coke cans with names printed on them. This is presumably why the survey asked what we think of things with our names emblazoned on them - and even then, the Irish were top of the list, as the survey showed we were most likely to feel an attachment to something - like, say, a Coke can – with our name on it.
Now, when I was a kid in the 80s, it was literally impossible to find anything with my name on it. You might think that Anna is a fairly ordinary common name, but either it wasn't very common back then (and I don't think it was - I've never met another Irish Anna my age) or the people who made name badges and door plates and even bowls only had a limited number of names at their disposal and thought that we Annas could just get a mug with Anne on it and like it. Anyway, I never found a single Anna item.
And as for my full name, Anna-Marie, a name used only by teachers and my mam when she was cross with me - well, you might get lucky and find an Anne-Marie door plate, but considering that Anne-Marie was what I got called by adults who didn't know me very well, to my great irritation, I certainly wasn't going to go there. Nowadays, of course, I presume there are Coke cans galore with my actual name on them, to say nothing of cards and door plates and other things that somehow don't seem so exciting when you're 38.
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But the survey did get me thinking about my name. I suppose I do like it, even though technically Anna, the name everyone has called me since early childhood, isn't exactly the name on my passport and bank statements (that's Anna-Marie). I don't feel hugely proud of it, because it really is fairly ordinary, and I can't see how it makes me confident, unless it's because I don't have to worry about people spelling it wrong (unless they think I'm called Anne).
via EtsyI don't know whether it's had a positive impact on my life, although maybe its very boringness has helped me without my noticing; it's been shown people with names strongly associated with certain social groups sometimes get treated in a negative way by people with prejudices against those groups, so a more generic name probably hasn't set off any bigot's alarm bells. But would I have been a different person if my name had been Sorcha or Brenda or Carol or Amelia? It's hard to know.
So what do you think of your name? Do you love it? Hate it? Think it's had an impact on your life? Did you get stuff emblazoned with it as a child? And if not, are you still a bit resentful (I think I am)?
