What's in a name?

This project team now has in excess of  a hundred team members and yet we still don't have a project name. I've only received one suggestion which was around the Michael Jackson song Beat it, and whilst I love the sentiment I was never a big MJ fan so don't feel drawn to it. However, i have come up with something that I think fits the bill perfectly. 

As many people know I have always disliked my full first name. It reminds me of being in trouble as a child, and always sounded so dull and serious. Even now being called Nicola brings back that feeling of dread surrounding the inevitable telling off that followed. If I got called Nicola Louise however then I knew I was really in trouble. 

I was not meant to be called Nicola however. Pre birth my parents wanted to call me Andrea Emma if I was a girl or (don't laugh) Timothy Gavin if I was a boy. Thank goodness for that second X chromosome. However, when I turned up apparently I didn't look like an Andrea, and my grandmother declared she had an Aunt called Emma who she disliked. So from somewhere I got stuck with Nicola. 

It was shortened by me to Nicket as a very young child as I could not say the full word, and close family and friends eventually shortened it to Nic as a child. It was not until my late teenage years when Nikki became my adage of choice, but for those who knew me as a child this moniker is an alien and uncomfortable concept. I however quite like it and am finally comfortable with a name for myself. 

However, official things still say Nicola on the whole. It matches the birth certificate and passport and so to that end there is not a lot I can do but accept it. In recent weeks inevitably Nicola has been used a lot at the various hospitals and medical practices. I said earlier that I think it sounds serious and so I suppose that makes it rather appropriate. 

Having heard 'Nicola' in use more frequently of late has made me recall a mug that I had as a child. I think Father Christmas may have brought it in my Christmas stocking when I was about ten years old. It is a Clinton cards mug with a Quentin Blake style cartoon on it and a poem about the meaning of the name 'Nicola'. In the world of positive thinking, the use of repeated affirmations is widely agreed to be a good way of instilling positive thoughts and influencing the laws of attraction to bring certain things into your life. With this in mind, it should be no surprise when you read the poem which is still etched on that mug in my parents' kitchen cupboard as well as firmly in my memory, why I am how I am. For better or worse. 

Nicola - meaning 'Victorious'
You are a winner, 
you are the best, 
always there before the rest, 
guaranteed every time
to be the first across the finish line. 

So for once, I think I have found a use for my official name that I quite like. It may be serious sounding, but this project needs some serious effort, and I think the poem says it all. So in looking for a project name that is suitably serious, and also destined to succeed, Project Nicola it is.