What's in a name?

I don't like my full first name - Kathleen. For the majority of my life I kind of accepted it, but never really liked it.

It's a family name. My grandmother was originally going to name my aunt Kathleen if she was a girl - unfortunately, my grandmother's best friend was also pregnant at the same time as my grandmother and having heard my grandmother talking about the name, her husband decided it would also suit their daughter, who arrived first, so my aunt got a different name instead.

Kathleen has been a middle name in our family for a few generations, but I think I'm the first to have it as a first name. Throughout school we experimented with different names. I dislike 'Kathy' more than I dislike 'Kathleen' (my friends know not to use my full name because I get pretty annoyed about it, but woe behold anyone who tries to call me Kathy), but for a while there I was 'Kay', and we tried 'Kath' - but around 6th form, I eventually became 'Kat'.

For a few years I struggled a little bit - I kept introducing myself as Kathleen, or other people would. It took me a surprisingly long time to come across the obvious - if I call myself Kat, and introduce myself as Kat, that's what people will call me. One day at work I asked my favourite supervisor to change my name badge from 'Kathleen' to 'Kat' - once that happened, things started slowly changing.

It wasn't until about 2003 that I stopped being Kathleen, except in legal situations. Some friends, who have known me a long time have had to train themselves into the new name (I think Holly has said before that she had to) and my relatives are still hopeless - except for a couple of cousins, my aunt and (on occasion) my mother. For the most part, to my family I am 'Kathleen'. I once bailed my brother and father up on it, asking why they continued to call me Kathleen - they just stared at me blankly and said "because that's your name". All the convincing in the world is not going to change their attitudes (even though my dad goes by a shortened version of his name - although my brother generally goes by the full version of his).

Some people don't quite get it though. Despite the fact that when he gets an email from me, it comes from 'Kat' and everybody calls me that (and the fact I've worked there almost a year now), one of the guys at work still calls me 'Kate'. It would just be a little embarrassing to correct him now, so I just have a little giggle to myself and let it be - afterall, at least it's not 'Kathy'.