Emily

I've written a post on this before but that was in the age of the dinosaurs and now I have new readership that could do with some useless information, so let me tell you a story that will not make an ounce of a difference to your life:

My dad's initials are RJB and my mum's are EB. So when they were naming their firstborn they did what most parents do, and gave him these initials: REB.

My folks are pretty clinical in their approach to everything. So when their second child (yours truly) was born, they first tried to do the "right thing" by mixing and matching the existing pool of familial initials. They came up with ERB as the best fit.

In those days the internet was unheard of, and so also were Baby Name books, by the looks of it. One of my dad's sisters drew up a pretty modest list of names for baby girls, and Emily was the only one that fit the bill. 

Back then my dad had a first cousin called Emelda, who was lovingly known as "Yemmy" throughout (hopefully only) the family. We are Mangaloreans; we specialise in brutally murdering English names. One of the many brilliant grandmums in the B household recognised an earth-shattering problem:

We will have to call this girl "Yemmy" and then all our love will be divided!

So my parents unanimously decided to break the mold and their mind boggling best fitting model. They looked for "interesting" and "different!" names in that same modest list. This, by the same couple that named their first offspring the most unique name that ever was - Rohan. 

Thus were created my fantastic initials: VHB, which comprise a first name (Vanessa) that most people cannot pronounce, a second name (Hazel) that says nothing about me unless you add the suffix -nut to it, and a last name (Braganza) that I still use because I'm too attached to it.

"I could have been an Emily!", I recently said to Fatty. "Chee, I would never marry an Emily.", said the man who married a Vanessa and intends to name his currently unborn children Joshua, Theia, Jeremy and Rebekah. They will all be Prasads.

I could have been an Emily.

- E for Emily (My A to Z Challenge)