Working at TM and a posh lady wearing an ID badge comes up to me to tell me she's joining our session. She came with a group in tow - her husband and younger white woman, a black man with an african accent and 2 mixed-background kids. She was organising them. I don't know her relationship to any of the people other than her husband but she was domineering and paternalistic in that upper / middle class english way. She demanded my name (I always introduce myself before we start, and we hadn't started yet. I have noticed before, that rich white english people demand your name before they'll engage with you.)I said "Alana". She said, was that an 'english name'? I didn't know what to answer so, flustered, I eventually said, yes.
What doesn that mean, an english name? Is it a traditional name that english people use? Like Ethel, or Gladys, or Elizabeth? Is it a name that english people currently give their children? Like Britney, or Kylie, or Ashley? or is it a name that readily identifies a person as from a white english background, as opposed to any other ethnicity?
A few days ago someone called Alana left a comment on an entry. She said she was Jewish. Is Alana a Jewish name? I changed my name when I was 18 by deed poll, through the law with a Justice of the Peace. I changed it because I didn't want to be so 'ethnic' as to be called 'Ilana'. In my self-loathing I wanted to anglicise my name. If I was called Alana, I figured I could pass for 'normal'. I didn't really know how to answer that posh white english lady. I thought my name was english already. Maybe she collects exotica and she wanted me for her collection.