March 5th - Unique Names Day

This seemed like a good day for me to celebrate as I have an incredibly unique name, in fact I can confidently say I’m the only Emelia Fiell. My first name is really rare, I’ve never met anyone else with with same spelling and only direct relatives of mine have our surname. The theory is that it was anglicised a few generations back when my family emigrated to Canada.

My first name Emelia comes from my great grandma Emelia (which came up on namesake day) but not even she was an Emelia Fiell as she was in my father's maternal line. I had a look online at Baby Name Uniqueness Analyzer and for the year I was born I was one of only 53 babies called Emelia. The name has gotten more popular since 1990 though, moving from 2344th to 541st most popular girls name in 2017.

I then put my full name into GBG UK names to see if there were any other similar names in the UK. Apparently there aren’t!

Next stop I thought I’d try an American database, How Many Of Me, as there would be more people in it and my family name is from North America so possibly some relatives there that I’m unaware of?

Unsurprisingly there’s one or fewer Emelia Fiell’s but up to 122 Fiell’s! The estimate isn’t absolute and digging into the websites FAQs it seems to basically mean that at lower numbers it’s really hard to estimate so there could be a fair bit of variance. So I’m going to assume there’s less of us than 122.

The takeaway, yes my name is completely unique as suspected. In some ways it’s great...if you Google me, all you get is me!

I’m also the top ‘Emelia F’ on IMDB which is kind of cool in its own way, maybe one day I’ll be the top Emelia on it. On the other hand I’m often cautious of giving my full name to people as once you have that you can find out so much out about me online, it’s a double edged sword.

On the whole though Unique Names day...8/10 I really like having such a unique name and wouldn’t change it!

March 3rd - Namesake Day

Today is a relatively easy day to celebrate as I’m named after my great grandma, Emelia Hamill. She was was my fathers, mothers mother. She was a proper pioneer women in Canada, full of stories of coming across the country in covered wagons and riding to school on a horse. She was also one of the toughest and warmest people I’ve ever known. She lived to 102 years old and I was incredibly fortunate to have her in my life for 18 years. A lot of people don’t get that long with their grandparents let alone their great grandparents.

I didn’t see her very often as she lived in Canada and I grew up in the UK but every year or so I’d go out for a few weeks and we’d spend time together. Right up until the end she was surprisingly spritely, even when she had to eventually go into a nursing home, and never lost her curiosity and interest for life and other people.

This is her with my grandma next to her and my dad (the smallest baby) in about 1958.

And this is her meeting me, her first great grandchild, at Christmas 1990. I would have been about 3 months old.

Namesake day...10/10, I love being named after her. My family is full of tough women and I like being connected with someone so wonderful through my name. Maybe one day I’ll have a great granddaughter named after me!