The stories behind our names ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is Six Minute English

from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.

Names tell us a lot about a person. Many names have meanings.

Paul, for example, means humble, and the name

Anna originated from a Hebrew word meaning graceful.

Our name is an important part of our identity.

If you hear someone shout your name in the street,

you automatically turn to look.

But names also reveal cultural and family connections which give us

a sense of our history and our place in the world.

In this programme, we'll be meeting a writer whose name combines

two very different sides of her identity –

one English and the other Indian. Sheela Banerjee was born in Hayes,

West London, to parents from the East Indian state of Bengal.

We'll be hearing about Sheela's research into her name and family history.

And, as usual,

we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first, I have a question for you, Neil.

As every parent knows,

choosing your child's name

isn't easy. Names go in and out of fashion and a name

that was popular one year, soon becomes old fashioned.

So, what was the most popular name for baby girls in the UK last year?

Was it A. Florence, B. Olivia, or C. Amelia?

I guess it was Olivia.

OK, Neil. We'll find out the answer later in the programme.

Sheela Banerjee's name came out of her parents' journey

from British India to West London in the 1950s.

Here she tells BBC

Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth,

how reflecting on this journey inspired her new book,

What's in a name? which blends her own life story with history and politics:

As soon as I started thinking about it, you know, this name

Sheela, which is, you know, I was a 7-year-old girl living in Hayes called

Sheela - this very typical English name - you know,

what's that name doing there...

if you start to pull at that, the threads lead you to the story of

my Bengali parents' migration over here, to mass migration from the colonies

after the war to this country,

and then Banerjee contains all these stories about

colonialism and caste.

Her parents wanted their daughter to feel safe in London

so they gave her a typical English name,

Sheela. If something is typical,

it shows the usual features of a particular type of person or thing.

It is a good example of that type. She may have had

a typical English name, but with dark skin and hair,

Sheela didn't look like some people's image

of a typical English girl. Wanting to find out more about her culture,

Sheela started to pull the threads behind her family story.

Pulling the threads is an idiom meaning to investigate deeper

into something, revealing the hidden connections behind it.

What Sheela discovered was a story of mass migration – periods in history

when large groups of people move from one geographical area

to another. Mass migrations have happened throughout

history in the 1950s and 60s.

Many South Asian families, including Sheela's, migrated west to cities in the UK.

But this is just one half of the story.

Sheela's family name, Banerjee, reflects her roots

in the Bengali culture of East India, where surnames

tell a lot about a person's social status or caste.

Here's Sheela explaining more to BBC

Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth.

It is an Indian name, but actually it's not my real name.

You've got names like Banerjee, Mukherjee, Chatterjee, which, you know,

nowadays people hear over here, but Banerjee is an anglicised form

of my original name which would have been ‘Bandyopadhyay’

and it’s a name that was changed by the British when they went over there

because they really basically couldn't be bothered to pronounce it,

or couldn't pronounce it,

and for me it's always been a very mixed name

because it signifies that we were,

you know, colonial subjects and so

it's a tricky name to be carrying around.

Sheela's surname is actually pronounced ‘Bandyopadhyay’

but during colonial times the name became anglicised –

it was changed to sound more English.

This happened a lot:

the surnames Chattopadhyay became Chatterjee,

and Mukhopadhyay became Mukherjee,

either because the British rulers could not pronounce them,

or because they couldn't be bothered –

they didn't make the effort.

Sheela feels her anglicised surname has always been tricky – difficult to use,

because of the association with colonialism and oppression.

Ironically, it was London, the capital of the British Empire, that

in modern times became the destination for migrants from all over the world.

OK, it's time to reveal the answer to your question, Beth.

What was the most popular girls' name in 2022?

I guessed it was Olivia...  

Which was...the correct answer!

In 2022, Olivia

remained the most popular girls' name for the sixth year in a row

and was given to 3,649 baby girls.

OK, let's recap the vocabulary

from this programme, starting with typical – containing

the most usual features of a particular type of person or thing.

If you pull the threads of something, you investigate it more deeply

to find the hidden stories behind it.

Mass migration is the historical movement of large groups of people

from one place to another.

If something is anglicised, it's changed to sound or appear English.

If you can't be bothered to do something,

you don't make the effort to do it.

And finally, if something is tricky,

it is difficult to manage and requires careful use.

Once again, our six minutes are up.

Goodbye for now. Bye!