Kevin in the middle...

My middle name is Kevin. Please accept my apologies.

Was it some sort of cruel trick? Not content with getting an inscrutable Chinese midwife to name me 'Andrew' they then decided that my middle name should be Kevin! It gives me nightmares to this day. How they arrived at this choice I’ve no idea, there were no Kevin’s in the family. Maybe there was a Kevin passing the house just as my dad opened the bedroom window and shouted:

“Middle name anyone?”

‘Hoopla!’ The decision was made. Again I fear that they gave my middle name as much thought as my first - and subsequently anything else to do with me.

If only they had picked William.

William was a family name and was generally included somewhere in the male child naming process. My great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and father all had the William name; there had been Williams in our family for generations. Not me though. It seems I wasn’t family enough to bear the family name. A pity really as you can do a lot with William. With William I could have been Bill or Billy, Will or Willy, or even Wills if the mood had taken me. I doubt that I would have made myself known as Will.i.am. and i.didn’t.get.the.f’ing.chance.

And so I became Andrew Kevin instead.

I sometimes dream about how my parents came up with my middle name…

Mother: “How about William? There are lots of Williams in your family.”

Father: “Let’s name him after the milkman.”

Mother: “Kevin? Kevin’s a sheep’s name!”

Father: “Exactly!”

So I’m named after a sheep… baaaa!

Exactly!

For years I went by 'Andy' and then one day I dropped the ‘y’ and replaced it with an ‘i’. Unfortunately it stuck, and for many years that 'i' became my life’s bane. There was this assumption by many that I was a girl and I regularly received mail to Ms Andi Height. How stupid and poncey was I?

Well, at least I never became a Drew. Except for an interesting fortnight one summer (but that’s another story).

Most people trying to turn their backs on their first name would have turned to their middle name:
“Call me Bill.”
“My Name? It’s Willy. Like the Willy of trouser snake fame.”
Yes, I really am a dick charmer. But somehow the middle name thing didn’t work for me, “Call me Kev,” didn’t have quite the same ring.

Did I mention that I sometimes dream about how my parents came up with my middle name?...

Father: Is that boy normal?

Doctor: Your child is perfectly normal

Father: No abnormalities?

Doctor: None whatsoever.

Father: Not even ADHD?

Doctor: That hasn’t been invented yet.

Father: Then I guess we’re just going to have to name him Kevin and wait.

Maybe, I wasn’t perfect like my cousin. But I don’t think I deserved Kevin.

That’s it... of course there was always my surname to fall back on…