Littlest One

What’s in a name? In my case it was years of disliking mine – until I didn’t. My name was different back in the day – not so much now. You can even find it on a tacky keyring these days. I didn’t like having a ‘different’ name. My siblings all had much more traditional names but mine drew attention which is something I shied away from as a child and don’t much enjoy now. My name felt incongruous and people would comment on it – a lot – along with the length of my eyelashes. (I’ve grown to love them too but once tried to cut them all off because they were so often remarked on).

My name is Imogen. Nothing scary or out of place in being an Imogen today, but in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s it was rarely heard in this country. I was always told it was Scandinavian in origin and meant ‘last born’. As the youngest of 4 this made sense to me, I like names to have a logical reason – it was still just too different though and I would have much rather been called by my middle name, which is Sarah. Sarah didn’t call out for attention even though its meaning is ‘princess’. Last born princess certainly had a ring to it.

If you look up the meaning of Imogen sources say it is actually a rare Gaelic name meaning ‘maiden’ or ‘daughter’ – the result of misspelling Innogen. A more modern interpretation is ‘beloved child’. All of these are delightfully inoffensive and I have grown to love my name, particularly the full version as opposed to the Immy that I much preferred as a child. Never Imo though, I really couldn’t stand that. I have no logical explanation as to why.

Shakespeare liked the name enough to name a character Imogen in his play, Cymbeline. There is a rose named Imogen after this character – I have one in my garden. There is even a Jilly Cooper novel called Imogen – if it hadn’t been written after my birth I would not have been surprised if this was where my parents got the name from as they were both big J.C. fans, although the main character herself is a bit of a drip and the whole novel is now terribly outdated, but still an amusing read.

The other problem with being an Imogen is signing your name – try making an I look beautiful without being completely over the top about it. It is so much easier to embellish literally every other letter of the alphabet.

So what is in a name? Well, sometimes embarrassment, sometimes pride, sometimes indifference and sometimes strength. For me, my name has been all of those things through various stages of my life, but it’s stuck with me and I’ve grown to love it.