That poem earlier today, yes, it was meant to be a little grating; it reflects every time I hear my name in the form of Teen or just hearing my name Tina makes me cringe.
I’ve always hated my name, because of two main reasons;
The first one is that my mother always referred to me as Teen when she wanted a cup of tea as she felt it was funny and cute to associate me as Tina the tea maker, cuppa tea Teen, go on? She wasn’t offering, it was her way in telling me to go do it. I wouldn’t mind, but it made me felt like she named me deliberately to become her tea slave from the age of 7yrs.
The second reason was because my name was deliberately chosen not to be an abbreviation of a larger more formal name because my mother didn’t want me being associated with my father’s aristocratic ancestral past.
Names the family suggested were Martina, Christina (a family name anyway), Valentina or Agustina, anything but not just Tina. My mum was an inverted snob and deliberately called me Tina, it has been the bane of my life telling new people that no, I’m simply Tina, don’t press around for a formal name you won’t find one here, I wasn’t blessed with one – people tend not to believe me.
My mum wanted to call me Tina-Maria but my aunts said she couldn’t do that to me because that’s an alcoholic drink isn’t it? No Tia Maria, but she understood. My dad’s side of the family are mostly teetotal devout Catholics and don’t do drinking outside of mass, so the idea of that name combination was horrifying to them! They always thought my mum was a wild wayward woman!
Then she said that if she didn’t get her way with calling me Tina then she’d call me Tracey or Denise – which soon shut my dad’s family up because they were the most common names she could think of to make them cringe enough to be a threat to them, so they stayed quiet!
Mum said if they hadn’t of shut up she’d have called me Tracey, my goodness I am glad they kept quiet!
I’ve always hated my name and since moving in with Paul I am either Tina-Victoria as a double barrel first name (combining my first name with the middle name) or I am just Victoria. I know it makes me sound like a snob, but I am uncomfortable with my proper name, if you can call it a proper name that is!
Henry my son had a funny idea, which if my mother intended for me to be Just Tina, then why not call me Justina?
He said that could be my new name, lol. I don’t think so!
But it did kind of cross my mind once or twice as a joke on my mum, if I did that!
Because throughout most of my life I was always given the awkward task of explaining “I’m just Tina”!
Thanks for reading!
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