What's in a name?

When I was doing the MA in Educational Research at Sheffield (yes another one - the Women's Studies one was not recent enough to count as prep for doing a PhD - luckily because the MA Ed Res was a total joy from beginning to end and managed to turn me into a halfway decent researcher) we had a session on de-colonising research. Dr Jennifer Lavia started the session by asking us to think about our names. And I've been thinking ever since. You see I used to be known as Yvonne Jovanka Hermine Novakovic. But since getting married in 2005 I am Yvonne Downs. Being adamant that I am a feminist, changing my name and 'taking' my husband's name was no small matter. There was a reason I felt I wanted to, but to be honest I wasn't really sure what that reason was. I just knew I wanted to change my name.

Likewise, chosing not to be public about my middle names was motivated by something I was not able articulate. My son Jonah asked me recently if I didn't like them (no, I love them) or was embarrased by them (he's 17 and so is easily embarrassed. I'm 50 and my threshold is somewhat higher). I haven't lost or dropped my middle names - I just no longer have them on official documents (although they crop up now and again for example on my 'O' level certificates). After Dr Lavia's seminar I was able to think more deeply about what's in a name and had reached an understanding of my motivations but it wasn't until last week that I finally articulated them.

Talking to one of my participants (we often stray beyond the boundaries set by the research topic) I told her that I became tired of having to enter into a conversation every time I gave my names. This was more than simply having to spell them every time, tedious as that was. No, what got to me was having to reveal aspects of myself in answer to the questions they prompted. 'Novakovic? Where is that from? From my dad. It's Serbian. (At one time to say Serbian was akin to saying 'from the devil himself', such was the demonisation of Serbs in the media 'reporting' on wars where there always have to be good guys and bad guys). No, not from Serbia. From Croatia. (How come? Oh God which century to start in?). And Hermine? My mum's name. No she wasn't English. Austrian. Why was she in England? (How far back do I go, what details will satisfy, what assumpions are you making, how much do you understand, when will this ever end?). Am I English? (I often felt sorely tempted to answer this in full, but then just gave the yes that made life so much easier). And on and on and on. (Why didn't I just say mind your own business? Well sometimes, often, I needed these people to do things for me and why antagonise them? And they meant no harm - curiosity is not a crime and anyway, I was brought up to be polite).

This is just to give a flavour of what answering the question 'what is your name' could occasion. As Dr Lavia pointed out - a name says not only much about you, it says much about your history and the context in which you are you. It is a densely packed case. And now, more than the relief of no longer having to 'disclose' parts of my 'self' to strangers in settings incongruous with intimacy, I no longer have to implicate others (my parents particularly) in the formation of that self. In answering questions about my name I was simultaneously saying too little and too much. So I have restored those aspects of me which I wish to keep private to a private sphere, problematic as the notion of a private sphere may be. It irks me sometimes that no one questions Yvonne Downs because it says much about the workings of power, which was kind of where Dr Lavia went in her seminar (but in a far more nuanced and sophisticated and critcally astute way - I don't wish to do her an injustice). But most of the time I hug to my chest the knowledge that in saying my name I am not giving myself.