'E'stella......not STELLA, Stella, not ESTELLA. WHAT'S MY NAME?!

Yeah yeah yeah, after my post Don't Frigging Call Me Ijeoma!!!, I have been asked what I mean?! Why I don't want want to be called Ijeoma, and if I don't like the name etc......but I thought I already explained all that there..... just to reiterate, I LOVE my native, middle name - Ijeoma just that its a family name, reserved for special people in my lives.

I want to be called 'Estella'.....but.....em......is ESTELLA really my name? Did my parents name me 'Estella' from birth? Erm....em......the answer is NO! Oops!!! I let it out already!

My name at birth was 'STELLA'........means - 'STAR' and I love it!!!

But high school time came around and we had like 4 'Stellas' in the SSCE 3 classes!! And let me break it down here.....( I sure hope none of the girls reads this and come after me with mortar and pestle! lol)...

• Stella #1 was tall and loud and noisy! And very pretty!!
  
• Stella #2 was ugly inside and out! And a bully too!
  
• Stella #3 was a lying, stealing crazy ho!!! As young as that age, when some of us didt even know what and how the 'thing' dangling between a man's legs functioned, #3 had ridden so much of them that we all started avoiding her with her stories of stuffing pillows under her bed covers to deceive her parents that she was sleeping at home while she sneaked out to go to parties that they had sex on the dance floors!!! What?!!!! And she looked very angelic outside!
• Stella #4 was me. The only description they had of me was "Four Eyes" because I wore prescriptive eye glasses in school... Mean, crazy school mates!!!!! Hmmmph!!!

Ok, so, the grapevine was always busy!! And we had a school Board where bullet-ins and stories, poems etc were posted for the whole school to read. Call it the School's Newsletter. And there was the gossip corner, and there was always a story about a 'Stella' ....and you can bet that they were never good stories!! And then people had to be asking "Which Stella?!!" And of course, when you are writing a gossip column, you knew better than to add last names! So the writer could say "I didn't call no last name, how can you say I was talking about you?!" And this sure made the news juicier because one could never tell which Stella was being talked about, except those in the Inner caucus! We all knew the Stella being talked about though, but not everyone in school, especially those in the junior classes or the staff....Stella #3 bragged to us about her escapades, so, we knew.....talk about one bad Stella spoiling the reputation of other good Stellas!

Along comes Mr Charles Dickens to my rescue! How? Hold on, I'll get to that in a second!

Mr Charles Dickens wrote a book called "GREAT EXPECTATION", and I was a stellar (as per excellent;-) scholar in English and English Literature. And the selected text in the school's syllabus was Great Expectations. And there was ESTELLA HAVISHAM!!! I loved the book, but Estella's character in that book, I really dont like, and I must confess that at that young age of 15 that I read the book, I knew deep inside that Estella was what could be called a 'bitch' in today's slangs. She was mean, and a teaser and broke poor Pip's heart...see that portion of the story here...But why?! I didn't get it and still dont get it! And till date, I dont know why I chose a name associated with a heart breaker! Heck! I was young! And I just wanted to be different, and it was just a matter of adding an "E" before 'Stella', right? Have I broken hearts? Hmmmm.......Have I?! Any victim? Do I see any hand up? Ha Ha Ha....OK, that I know no guy would raise a hand to because they always want to be seen as macho and super and never been dumped/hurt or jilted.....ha ha ha

Anyhoo, the direction of this gist is that I decided to be called ESTELLA, to differentiate myself from the other Stellas! And I left notices and told everyone to STOP calling me STELLA, but should call me Ex-Stella! I divorced STELLA and became EX-STELLA (later turned to ESTELLA).....I refused to answer anyone that called me STELLA, even teachers! And they got the message eventually! And I wrote my exams and changed all my documents to ESTELLA! Except my original Baptismal Card that still has 'Stella' on it!

Thus the birth of ESTELLA!

Did my parents just accept my changing the name they gave me? Hmmmmmm....... I never asked them...(come to think of it)....and they never brought it up. I guess because they called me Ijeoma, thus, the other name didn't matter, .... I will have to ask them what they thought when I changed my name to Estella! And for real, they have called me Estella in public, so, I guess they dont mind.

Some people still call me Stella, and I just politely tell them my name is 'Estella'...and I have been asked: "Is it not the same thing?" etc... Sure, Estella, Stella, Estella, Izarra etc all mean 'Star'. But I rather be called 'Estella'.....