Names and nicknames

I was chatting today with Sylvia about our names and our families names and how we came by them. I then went on to read my blogs and funnily enough there was a blog with a meme asking were we named after anyone? Talk about a small world.

I was named after my two grandmothers as was the custom in my generation. Well I say I was named after them but I was not exactly. My name was to be Jennet Elizabeth but my mother decided that Janet was a more acceptable form of the name. Nice name you may think unless you came from the Oldham region as I did. I spent most of my childhood saying my name is JanEt and not JanIt. Added to the fact that my maiden name was Buckley I couldn't win when I shortened my name to Jan as I was then known as Jam Buttie through junior school. My mother had thought of Elizabeth Janet but rejected it as I would either get called Eliza Jane or Lizzie. I later read Little Women and dearly wanted to be called Beth but the die was cast JanIt it was to be for many years to come until I moved away from Royton and the Oldham accent to an area where they pronounced my name as Janette.

My family, of course, had pet or nicknames for me. My father used to call me Joey. You might think it was because I sang so beautifully like our caged bird with the same name? No - he said like the budgie I would stay quiet as a mouse until he was listening to something on the radio and then both the bird and I would start twittering and he couldn't hear it! I still twitter when I am nervous so I guess that Joey still fits me.

My older brother had another name for me. Jezebel. Frankie Lane had a record in the charts in the 50's called Jezebel and the lyrics went "If ever the devil was born without a pair of horns it was you - Jezebel it was you" I used to ask my mum to tell him to stop singing that to me all the time but I suppose it can't have been easy for him having a much younger sister foisted on him when he would rather play out with his mates. I was a bit of a hellion when I was small and didn't get my own way. Not exactly what you need tagging along with you when you are 12.

My nieces now call me Netty as we decided years ago that I wasn't going to be an Aunt anything and at work I was always J.C from my (married name) initials.

The crochet is something that I dragged out of a carrier bag. I started it many years ago when I tried to revive my love of crochet and failed. I didn't recover my crochet and knitting mojo until I retired. Yesterday I finished the other half of the back but unfortunately I now seem to be crocheting looser than I did when I first started it. Fortunately it is worked shoulder down so the bottom half being wider is not a problem as my bottom half is wider than it was when I first started the cardigan. Hopefully I will now finish it and it will be one less bag in my stash. I will start the fronts on a smaller hook to start with and then change hooks to match the back.