What's in a name?

Shakespeare said in his play Romeo and Juliet that 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'

Would it really?  What's in a name?

I have met a Shakespeare, a Knollys (descendant of Lettice Knollys), Lord Rotheshild, there is even a Cromwell and a Darwin relative on my Twitter. Historical names, travelling down through history. My first husband was a Buxton from theTruman Hanbury & Buxton family.

No woman in history has her own surname, she has her fathers, then her husbands, even unmarried she has no name of her own. 

Then there are the acting dynasties, the Redgraves, The Foxes, The Beckinsales, The Attenboroughs,The Snows. I once worked with Lady Jane Wellesley, a descendant of he Duke of Wellington, we both did the same job at the BBC. We were both frustrated by not moving up, she had refused to use her real name wanting to get promotions on her own merit. One lunchtime I told her she should use her real name & within weeks she was a producer.

One of Jane Austen's characters  Ann Eliot's father said "oh a curate, a curate at Winthrop,  he has no name, he is a no-body"

My name, born a Cooper - a trade name - a barrel maker, a working class name, go to work get married, put food on the table, what else is there?

Actually, my Grandfather Sidney Cooper was a bookbinder, his son, my Father Sidney Cooper was a design Engineer, after being a chief aircraft engineer in the Navy. He was too young to fight in the war.

Evans, Welsh, Husband's father was on The Long Walk, a member of the Black Watch, a Scots regiment. Worked in the salt mines when captured by the enemy. If there was Welsh in that family, they moved to Scotland for some reason in the dim and distant past.

Me. Who am I?  what name is mine?  Cooper I suppose, Evans, for my husband, left Buxton for my son. My mum was a Clifford, her mum was a Burke, her cousin the Bishop of Derry, she was also a relative of the sea captain who helped discover longditude.

Your name helps you move through life, helps you earn your keep or not, leads you to interesting places, holds you steady? not sure about that.

I'm certainly jealous of those with aristocratic names, who put up miniatures of their ancestors on twitter. Here's why. They don't have to be good at what they do. Their name and connections are enough to carry them through. I have to try harder as I have no money behind me. 

Stupidly I what little money I earn I give away to charities and people in need.
Years ago  bank manager called me in to tell me I had an overdraft.(those were the days!) I told him I gave my money to Oxfam famine relief. 
He told me charity begins at home. 

A friend of mine gave me a lovely birthday present last year which sums it all up.