Often when I meet someone for the first time, I will introduce myself and a strange look appears on their face as if to ask a question. A question I know well. I usually answer before they get a chance to ask it.
“Yes, my mum was young – a big Neighbours fan.”
In other words, yes, I was named after Kylie Minogue.
I live in the UK and I don’t know many Kylies. In fact I have only met two in my life and of the three of us, two were named after her and the other was named before she was famous. If you know a Kylie born in the 80s or 90s, and you aren’t in Australia, she was probably named after her. She was The Kylie. She was huge. She still is - Wikipedia claims She is the highest-selling female recording artist from Australia, having sold over 80 million records worldwide.1
You won’t get any prizes for guessing what song was topping the charts in the UK around the time my parents, met, fell in love etc etc..
I joke, but it has always bothered me being named after someone like Kylie Minogue.
“Like Minogue”
When I meet people who ask my name and they await a spelling for whatever reason, I will say, it’s like Minogue. You would have to have been living under a rock not to know who she is and therefore in my mind anyone should be able to spell the name.
This means that before they have got to know me at all, I have provided Kylie Minogue as a comparison to myself.
The voice in my head says, your name might be like Kylie, but you sure aren’t.
Annoyingly there are some similarities. We are both short, (around 152cm) we both have naturally curly hair and we are both fabulous singers and dancers. (One of these may be a lie). I used to think my parents knew that somehow I would have similar attributes. That they had named me after her because they wanted me to be like her. But when I compare us, I always come worse off. I know I could never be as successful as her, whatever career I tried.
But whilst she is petite, slim and has been known to have glossy blonde curls, I am a similar height, my body is stretched from having two children and my dirty bronde curls are far from glossy. It bothers me that I offer her up as a comparison to plant in people’s heads before I tell them anything about myself.
There is nothing to compare, though, really. We are two different women from different times and different worlds. No one is going to expect me to be a great singer based on a name my 19-year-old mother gave me. She has always been part of my story, but it’s me who puts her there.
I mean, I’m sure many children were named after other pop legends such as Michael Jackson but it’s less obvious isn’t it? There is no denying who I am named after. Even if I didn’t mention her, it seems obvious to me that she inspired my name.
By introducing myself as like Minogue, it inevitably leads me to talk about my mum being young, and into soaps, (which she still is) and I think this can provoke certain assumptions and judgements about my life and where I have come from. These assumptions are probably right, but I don’t want people to judge me before they have tried to get to know me. Yet I still do it.
In a way I wonder if I would judge someone in the same way I expect others to judge me. If I met a Dua or a Ziggy it probably tells me more about their parents than it does them, and even then do they name their child a musician’s name in order for their child to somehow channel some inherit musical talent that comes through their name? We named our sons names we liked the sound of. Sure, there was a story perhaps, a family connection, and many names we could never agree on but sometimes that really is all there is to it. They liked the sound of it.
But time is moving on and I have noticed more recently, that the Kylie reference is getting more and more lost. Sometimes people slip into Jenner territory, someone who I am probably less keen on being associated with. Kylie Minogue isn’t the most obvious association for younger people. She isn’t around as much any more. You would see more of your favourite instagram influencer these days than you would her.
But actually, maybe I am lucky.
It’s not so bad. First of all, while she isn’t my favourite pop star, I do think she’s great. I have spent many a drunken night throwing myself around the dance floor to her music, even if I am unlikely to play it on my headphones.
It could have been worse. I remember when my secondary school decided they wanted to create houses and name them after famous women, I put her name forward. They insisted, though the names be of women who were dead, and could therefore not shame themselves in the future. Something I hadn’t ever thought about, and obviously my mother hadn’t either.
I’m lucky, then, that neither Kylie have yet done anything terrible enough to make me want to change my name.
I like that it’s different.
Of course the unusualness of the name, especially in the UK perhaps is part of the problem. It wouldn’t be so strongly linked to a particular Kylie if there were many more, but I like that when someone shouts Kylie in a crowded place, chances are they probably are talking to me.
I like that it’s different, but it is far from unique. I will always think of Kylie as being her name first - that’s part of my story, but it doesn’t mean I need to reference her, especially now she’s not as big a deal and I certainly needn’t compare myself to her. That doesn’t make any sense at all.
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My mum was a Dallas fan back in the 80's so named me after Jenna Wade, who I only knew from googling now was played by Priscilla Presley. There wasn't many Jenna's when I was younger but strangely there are 3 mums called Jenna in my daughter's year and one also named her daughter Scarlett. And I've noted there are loads of Jenna's on Substack too.
Elisha - no idea where it honestly came from but it’s a boys name in the bible and that didn’t sit well when I looked like a boy as a pre teen in religious studies. Besides that I’d say my name is unique and I kind of suit it? I can’t imagine me as anything else.
My daughter Lacey named after Lacey Turner; not because she’s a soap actress but because my Nanny commented on her admiration for her and how much I reminded her of Lacey / Lacey of me. So I felt my mini - me had no other name !
Names are so interesting and sadly there doesn’t appear to be any rules.
Some kids now are called ABCDE, Spider or after pop artists or kardashians now and it’s awful…. But acceptable to most. Whereas now Kevin, Cliff, Roger to name a few examples are not babies anymore and they probably never will be again.
Girls names like Marilyn, Madonna or Penelope are more likely to return and become popular. Polly, Penny, Patty perhaps not Patricia. But if they’re not your grandparents names they’re great uncles and aunts right?
It’s one of the hardest things trying to find a name that’s socially acceptable for an infant come child come pre teen come adult come elderly person and grandparent.