"The time I legally changed my name by deed poll."

When I was born, my parents thought it would be a great idea to name me Alexis Mary-Vivian Carey.

That’s right – I was a walking poem.

To this day, they won’t admit that MARY rhymed with CAREY – “because there was a hyphen to break it up”.

Riiiiight.

I can’t really hold it against them – my dad has dyslexia, and English is not my mum’s first language.

And there was a nice idea behind it. One of my grandmothers was called Vivian and the other is Mary.

But still. Really guys? You didn’t think to run that past anyone before locking it in?

Can your name determine your life?

And what makes it worse is that Mary isn’t even my grandmother’s real name. Maria is on her birth certificate, but she anglicised it to Mary when she migrated to Australia in the 50s. So I was walking around with a stupid name for 18 years of my life for no good reason.

Once my middle name got out at school, you can imagine what fun my classmates had at my expense (Matt Dunn, I’m looking at you).

Someone even made up a little dance to go with my CLEARLY RHYMING name.

When the alphabet vomits on a birth certificate.

So when I turned 18, I changed it.

I filled out a form, got it signed by a JP, made my mum pay the fee (it was only fair), and got a shiny new name.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a terrible person to reject the name my parents gave me – my grandmothers’ names, no less.

And I know it is shallow and a trivial thing in the scheme of things and that a name should just be a name, etc etc etc.

Baby naming trend: Boys names are the new pink.

But I just couldn’t stand it any longer. Every time I looked at my driver’s licence or passport or school report card I would cringe and mentally shake my fist at my parents (I love them dearly, but come on).

I now feel like a normal person, complete with a normal-person name. I changed my middle name to Marie – a name so pretty but so common that no one would dream of bursting out laughing after hearing it.

Every time I see it now it makes me happy, even 10 years on. I love handing over my ID to bouncers and airport security people. In my head I’m always thinking, ‘Hey. Did you notice my awesome normal-person name?’

I feel a certain solidarity with kids who have been given dumb names. Granted, my name wasn’t in the same league as, say, Sex Fruit or Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii (both names that real people actually tried to name their real children). But still, I kind of feel their pain.

You’ll be glad to know that I’ve come to forgive my parents for afflicting me with such a traumatic middle name and I’ve moved on with my life. I’m a happy, functioning adult. But if I ever have kids? I’ll be workshopping the shiz out of their potential names, just in case.