I Hated My Name

By Daphne Hargreaves

My fate was sealed twenty-one years before I was born. It was at the time of my mother's birth.

My grandmother had longed to give her first born daughter the name Daphne. Her husband would have none of it, instead the baby was named Elsie Eileen. This name, my grandfather's choice, he registered before my grandmother was discharged from hospital - she was not even a party to the naming of the baby she had just given birth to!