BBC 6分钟英语学习 我们名字背后的故事

English from the BBC. Hello. This is 6 min English from BBC.

Learning English. I'm Neil and I'm Beth.

Names tell us

a lot about a person. Many names have meanings.

Paul, E.G. means humble,

and the name Anna originated from a

Hebrew word meaning graceful. Our name is an important part of our identity.

If you hear someone shout your name in the streets, you automatically turn to look.

But names also reveal cultural and family connections, which give us a sense of our history and our place in the world.

In this program, we'll be meeting a writer whose name combines two very different sides of her identity, one English and the other Indian.

Sheila Banegey was born in Haze West London to paren'ts from the East Indian state of Bengal.

We'll be hearing about sheila's research into her name and family history, and as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But 1st, I have a question for you, neil.

As every paren't knows, choosing your child's name isn't easy.

Names go in and out of fashion, and a name that was popular one year soon becomes old fashioned.

So what was the most popular name for baby girls in the UK last year?

Was it a Florence, b Olivia or c Amelia?

Hmm, I'll guess it was Olivia, ocaniel.

We'll find out the answer later in the program.

Sheila banigie's name came out of her paren'ts journey from British India to West London in the 1950s.

Here she tells BBC Radio for program Word of Mouth, how reflecting on this journey inspired her new book, what's In Her Name?

Which blends her own life story with history and politics.

As soon as I started thinking about it, you know this name, sheila, which is, you know, a seven year old girl living in haze called Sheila, this very typical English name.

You know, what's that name doing?

Then, if you start to pull up that, the threads lead you to the story of my Bengal paren'ts migration over here, to mass migration from the colonies after the war to this country.

And then energy contains all these stories about colonialism and cost Her paren'ts wanted their daughter to feel safe in London, so they gave her a typical English name, sheila.

If something is typical, it shows the usual features of a particular type of person or thing.

It's a good example of that type.

She may have had a typical English name, but with dark skin and hair, sheila didn't look like some people's image of a typical English girl.

Wanting to find out more about her culture, sheila started to pull the threads behind her family story.

Pulling the threads is an idiom, meaning to investigate deeper into something, revealing the hidden connections behind it.

What Sheila discovered was a story of mass migration, periods in history when large groups of people move from one geographical area to another.

Mass migrations have happened throughout history.

In the 1950s, in 1960s, many South Asian families, including shielders, migrated west to cities in the UK.

But this is just one half of the story.

Sheila's family name, bandagey, reflects our roots in the Benggoli culture of East India, where surnames tell a lot about a person's social status or cast.

Here's Sheila explaining more to BBC Radio full program.

Word of mouth. It is an Indian name, but actually it's not my real name.

You've got names like Banner G, mukagi, chatterjee, which you know nowadays, people here, over here, but banner G, which is an anglosized form of my original name, which would have been bondabund.

And it's a name that was changed by the British when they went over there because they really basically couldn't be bothered to pronounce it, or couldn't pronounce it.

And for me, it's always been a very mixed name, because it signifies that we were, you know, colonial subjects.

And so it's a tricky name to be carrying around.

Sheila surname is actually pronounced Bondo Badta, but during colonial times, the name became anglosized.

It was changed to sound more English.

This happened a lot. The surnames chatter butter became Chattergy, and muko butter became Mukigi, either because the British rulers couldn't pronounce them, or because they couldn't be bothered, they didn't make the effort.

Sheila feels her anglicized surname has always been tricky, difficult to use because of the association with colonialism and oppression.

Ironically, it was London, the capital of the British Empire, that, in modern times, became the destination for migrants from all over the world.

OK, it's time to reveal the answer to your question.

Beth, what was the most popular girl's name in 2022?

I guessed it was Olivia. Which was the correct answer?

In 2022, olivia remained the most popular girl's name for the six year in a row, and was

given to 3649

Baby yells. Okay, let's recap the vocabulary from this program, starting with typical, containing the most usual features of a particular type of person or thing.

If you'd pull the threads of something, you investigate it more deeply to find the hidden stories behind it.

Mass migration is the historical movements of large groups of people from one place to another.

If something is anglerized, it's changed to sound or appear English.

If you can't be bothered to do something, you don't make the effort to do it.

And finally, if something is tricky, it's difficult to manage and requires careful use.

Once again, our 6 min are up.

Goodbye for now. English from the BBC.

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