(N = Narrator; M = Matthew; D = Darina; C = Claudia; H = Harald; K = Katalin; J = Joseph)

 

N: What’s your full name?

M: Matthew J. Davidson.

N: Where does your name come from?

M: Well, I don’t really know. Um, well, obviously Davidson, son of David, um, for my last name. And Matthew is an Old Testament Bible name.

N: Does your first name mean anything?

M: Yes, it does actually. It means ‘gift of God’.

N: Would you like a different name?

M: No. I love my name.

N: What’s your favourite name?

M: Matthew.

 

D: My full name is Darina Rosemary Richter. My first name comes from Slovakia. It doesn’t have a special meaning, but I know my grandmother chose it. My second name is German and it means ‘judge’.

N: How did your parents choose your name?

D: Er, my grandmother chose my first name. She knew a girl that lived next door to her with the same name, and she liked it.

N: Would you like a different name?

D: No, I wouldn’t.

N: What’s your favourite name?

D: My favourite name is Madeline. If I have a child I think I will call her Madeline, if it’s a girl.

 

C: My full name is Claudia Mba, which is my married name.

It’s a Nigerian name and it has a very long meaning even though it’s a very short word. It means that you can say what you like about leopards, but if you’re faced with one, then you’ll still run away!

N: Does your other name mean anything?

C: No, not really. It’s derived from, um, it’s a Roman name and it comes from the emperor Claudius. It’s a female version of that.

N: How did your parents choose your name?

C: My dad teaches Latin and Greek so I think that’s probably where that one comes from.

N: Would you like a different name?

C: No, I like my name. My surname causes some problems because people never know how to pronounce it, but at least it’s interesting. My favourite name for a girl is Esme, because I think it’s very pretty. I don’t really have a favourite boy’s name.

 

N: What’s your full name?

H: Harald Dahle.

N: And where does your name come from?

H: It comes from Norway.

N: Does your first name mean anything?

H: Um, yes, it means ‘the man who leads the army’.

N: And your other names?

H: My surname means ‘valley’.

N: How did your parents choose your name?

H: I don’t know really.

N: Would you like a different name?

H: Not really, no.

N: What’s your favourite name?

H: Adriana.

N: Why?

H: It’s my wife’s name.

N: What’s your full name?

K: Katalin Süle.

N: Where does your name come from?

K: My first name comes from Hungary, and my second name also comes from Hungary but perhaps from Turkey too.

N: Does your first name mean anything?

K: Um, it probably does, but I don’t know what it means.

N: And your other names?

K: My surname doesn’t mean anything.

N: How did your parents choose your name?

K: Um, they put some names in a hat and my sister pulled my name out, my first name out.

N: Would you like a different name?

K: Um, I don’t think so.

N: What’s your favourite name?

K: Anna.

N: Why?

K: Um, I like the sound of it.

J: My full name is Joseph Vaughan Wilson.

N: Where does your first name come from?

J: I don’t know.

N: Does your first name mean anything? J: Not in English.

N: And your other name?

J: Um, well, I believe Wilson originally means ‘son of Will’ a long time ago, but, er, now I don’t think it really has any meaning.

N: How did your parents choose your name?

J: Um, I think they just chose it because it was a name they liked.

N: Would you like a different name?

J: When I was little I wanted a different name, but now I’m quite happy with it. My favourite name is probably my name, for a boy.

       

(D = Darina; Jo = Joanne; J = Joseph; N = Nicola; M = Matthew)

 

D: Um, this is a story from when I was about five years old. Um, I had a friend who lived next door, and one day we were playing in my room and we decided to make a scientific concoction, a scientific, um, experiment. So we took all of my mother’s shampoos and nail varnishes and perfumes, and we poured them all into the bath. She came in about half an hour later and went absolutely crazy. She sent my friend home and I wasn’t allowed to go out for a whole week afterwards. Jo: When I was younger, my sister and I had dolls. We’re twins and we both loved our dolls. One day, when Kim went to school, she left her doll, and I decided to cut the hair off her doll with a pair of scissors. When she came back from school she was very angry and she didn’t speak to me for months.

 

J: Well, when I was young, er, I used to live in a road, with er, several other children who lived around. And there was a friend across the road called David, who had a big plum tree in his garden. Lots of big, fat, juicy plums used to come every year. And, er, we quickly found out that if you put one of these plums on a stick, you could throw the plum quite a long way, and quite hard. Um, anyway, also in the road where I lived there was an old man who was always complaining about us cycling on the pavement and just generally making a noise, like children do. Er, I don’t think he liked children very much. Anyway, one day we went over to his house when he was out, and we got lots and lots of plums with our sticks and threw them at his windows, and all his windows were covered in plums and plum juice and it was a big mess. Um, and this was revenge for us, er, for him telling us off, er, all the time. Anyway, it was a silly idea because, um, we lived about a hundred yards away from this man, and he came out of his house one day when my father was there and he told him, and, er, my father took me inside and told me off.

 

N: It was when we were living in this house in London and my parents had painted the wall in my sister and my bedroom, and my sister had just learnt to write. And I wrote her name on the wall in her handwriting so that my parents thought that she’d done it. And she got into trouble with my parents. My mother was very angry. And I never told anybody that I did it.

 

M: I remember one winter there was a lot of snow and my friends and I decided to make some snowballs. But this time we made them extra special because we put rocks in the snowballs. And then we decided that we would throw the snowballs at the passing cars at the road nearby. And, um, we threw snowballs at one car in particular and it broke the window of the car. The guy pulled over, got out of his car, and he started chasing us. And we ran, had to hop fences and go through neighbours’ backyards and finally we got away.