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For my mother, there was no question about my name. She wanted her children to have strong names. But her own mother had given her a name with great power, but also great pain. The name my grandmother chose for her daughter was “Ethel.” My grandmother had fought hard to escape the past.
Her new family, after having fled Germany, had named their firstborn “Ethel” after the Queen of England. To her family, Queen Elizabeth I had been a powerful figure who waged war against the Catholic Church and defended the Protestants of England during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547). For my mother, who was born in 1933, this was an irony she could not ignore.
What would she do?Answers came slowly, but eventually my mother came to understand that she could never change her name. But she could make sure that the name of Ethel was not used again.