What’s in a Name?

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What to expect

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

'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?, Sheela Banerjee unravels the personal histories of friends and family through their names. And while tracing their heritage across centuries and continents - from west London to British India, and from 1960s Jamaica to pre-Revolutionary Russia - Sheela also 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.

(P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • This is a brilliantly enlightening book that uses the keyhole of people’s names to let us see into the lives and histories of people in multicultural Britain. It ranges across continents and epochs, at times moving, at others ironic, full of insights and detail.

    Michael Rosen

  • A kaleidoscopic portrait of the UK . . . Banerjee describes her friends’ backgrounds and experiences with insight and compassion

    Irish Times

  • Explores the complex stories of colonialism, persecution, faith, assimilation and hope . . . It will resonate with anyone who feels their name marks them out . . . Banerjee paints a heartbreakingly tender portrait of her father’s journey

    i

  • A brilliant book where she examines how her name can tell us so much about her family and their story. And she looks at some of her friends’ names too . . . fascinating stories weaving in and around the subject of names

    Times Radio

  • An absolutely fascinating deep dive into Sheela’s own Bengali name and the names of several of her close friends, uncovering migration stories from Tsarist Russia, India, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, the Middle East and Jamaica and the shocking racism of growing up in ’70s and ’80s Britain. It’s compelling reading, painting a picture of multicultural Britain today that is both familiar and eye-opening. It makes you think of your own name and its impact, and reflect on those of your friends. Excellent, highly readable and absorbing, the stories woven into this superb book will stay with me for a long time. I cannot recommend What’s In a Name? highly enough.’

    Priscilla Morris, author of Black Butterflies

  • Sheela Banerjee mixes indignation with curiosity. She goes through the “keyhole” of her friends’ names to unpeel complex stories of identity. The book defies monochrome pictures of how we define ourselves, how we live, how we mix.

    New Statesman

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