What's in a Name?

A sharp and timely examination of Britain's history, through the prism of something intimate and everyday - everyone's name tells a story, no matter how ordinary

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'Our names reveal a multitude of stories, reveal feelings, states of consciousness and lost histories that embody who we really are and where we come from . . . This is a personal journey to reveal the worlds which gave rise to what we are called'

Our names are so mundane that we barely notice them. Yet each contains countless stories of tradition and belonging - be that a legacy of colonialism or persecution, the desire to fit in, or the complex cultural inheritance from one's parents.

In What's in a Name?, journalist, academic and ex-TV producer Sheela Banerjee unravels the personal histories of friends and family through their names. Tracing their heritage across centuries and continents - from west London to British India, and from 1960s Jamaica to pre-Revolutionary Russia - Sheela tells the story of twentieth-century immigration to the UK.

Blending history, memoir and politics, What's in a Name? is a celebration of Britain's rich multiculturalism, an ode to friendship and a testament to all the stories held within our names.