My name

Hello

My name is Ali Marsland.

That’s Marsland. M – A – R – S – L – A – N – D. Not Marsden, or Marshall, or Marshland, or even Marsldn, all of which I’ve often been called.

And my name’s not Alison either. I’m pretty sure I never said that it was. I mean, why would I? It’s not my name. I call myself Ali but in my case Ali is short for Alexandra, not Alison.

I hate my name. I always have done, ever since I was a little girl. I don’t really know why; I just do.

Not many people get my name right, but it’s not that in itself that troubles me; the real problem I have is that because I hate my name I mumble it whenever I have to say it. I know I do it, and that makes the whole mis-spelling thing even worse because people can’t hear me clearly when I say it.

I never give my full name unless I really have to. If anyone asks my name I just say “Ali”. If pushed, I’ll begrudgingly give them my surname. But on the rare occasion when I have to provide my official birth name I cringe as I say “Alexandra Marsland”.

I’ve thought about changing it, of course. But what would I change it to? When you have every name in the world to pick from, how do you choose just one? And these days I could also include the names of fruit (thanks Gwyneth and Chris, Bob and Paula), places (Vic and Becks) or any other random words I found in the dictionary or simply made up. So, with no clue what to change it to, I’ve stuck with what I was given.

I have experimented though. ‘Ali’ is my aunt’s fault. I’m the oldest child. My younger brother is called Oliver and when my sister was born and named Elizabeth, my aunt pointed out we were “Ali, Oli, Eli”. And so I became Ali. Which is great because I’ve never liked Alex, which my parents assumed I would use.

So, all through school and university I was known as Ali.

The first time I really became aware of my name being unusual was after university when I lived in Sudan. In a Muslim country where many men are named Ali, my own moniker caused plenty of surprise and confusion.

When I returned home and took my first ‘proper’ job (editing the staff magazine for a John Lewis store), I called myself Ali. But that’s when people started to assume I was Alison. I distinctly remember walking down a corridor and hearing someone behind me call “Alison”. I knew she was addressing me and I mentally ran through the options: Do I answer and explain that my name isn’t actually Alison? Do I answer and not say anything to save her embarrassment and because it probably doesn’t really matter? Or do I not answer because really my name isn’t Alison and why would I respond to someone else’s name?

I don’t remember what I did in that particular situation but when I changed jobs I also changed my name and introduced myself as Alex. Even though I still hated it I felt sure I wouldn’t get called Alison and to me at that time it seemed more professional than Ali. But there I ran into more unexpected problems – people started to assume I was a man. I was working in a small PR agency and one of the main clients I worked for manufactured industrial power tools. More than once I answered the phone and found myself having to convince the caller that Alex Marsland really was me, yes I really was female and no, there really wasn’t a mistake.

Since then I’ve grown a little more comfortable in my own skin and have ditched ‘Alex’ (which never really felt right) in favour of ‘Ali’ once more.

So, my name is Ali Marsland. Ali is short for Alexandra, not Alison, and Marsland is spelt M – A – R – S – L – A – N – D. But you can call me whatever you like, just as long as I know when you’re talking to me.