What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.(Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Scene II, ii 1 -2). So speaks Juliet in Shakespeare’s famous work.
I was thinking about this, last week, when my friends came back from a holiday in Hong Kong and telephoned me to ask when they could come round to give me the present they had bought on their travels. They told me in was a framed pictogram of my name in Chinese with a translation of the meaning on the back.
“It describes you, exactly, its so funny.” I was fascinated and in the hour it took for them to arrive began to worry. “Oh my God” I thought I suppose it says “Witch who buy many shoe!” or even worse “Bitch who wery stubborn!”
They watched me with grins on their faces while I hastily unwrapped the framed pictograph with my name Vivien on the front. When I turned it over to find the source of their great amusement I found rather than anything derogatory it was lovely. It said “Sweetheart, head in the clouds”. I laughed out loud, because as a writer, I quite often write passages of stories in my head and then can’t wait to get to the computer to write them down. I suppose I’m in another world, the world of my imagination. and head in the clouds is quite apt. As for the “Sweetheart”, well I can’t possibly say.