When I was growing up, I always thought my name was unique.  

I didn’t know any other Sturgeons outside of my family, never mind any other Nicola Sturgeons.  

The first I heard of my namesake was when she became First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party in 2014. It was like she crept out of nowhere and boom, I was no longer individual.  

It did take me a couple of years to realise the impact of this change; I was quite young and only really heard about Nicola in passing. I didn’t really know who she was to be honest.  

It’s funny to think how easily I could have escaped this fate. She wasn’t in politics 28 years ago so my parents had no intention of naming me in relation to her.

They actually couldn’t decide what to call me – so they opened a baby book and chose my name from the random page they landed on.  

Saying all that, I wouldn’t say it has had much of an impact on my life.  

I get a lot of ‘are you related?’ responses when introducing myself. 

My brother has had emails asking the same. When he responded to one saying that he’s not but I’m called Nicola Sturgeon, he got a reply saying ‘Oh, that’s very unfortunate for your sister’. I remember thinking, ‘errrrm OK!? Thanks!’ 

Being Scottish myself, and my whole family being from there, at one point I did wonder myself whether she was a long-lost relative, but after asking around I can confirm we’re not related!  

It’s odd but it’s only been over the past year that I’ve really noticed my name affecting my day to day.  

I work for a building supplies company and I’ve had the Scottish customers reply to emails asking ‘when are you going to open the hairdressers?’, or ‘when can I have a pint?’. I wasn’t sure what to say at first because I was pretty bored of it all but I started to quite enjoy it after a while.  

I would play along by saying things like, ‘NEVER!!’, or, ‘if you stay in for another two years then maybe I will let you out’.

I’ve also had numerous people (usually the older generation) who probably aren’t the best with technology accidentally tagging me in tweets asking me to do this and that.  

I want to reply with some witty answer to confuse them but I tend to stick with ‘wrong person’. Maybe next time I’ll think of something! 

I don’t really follow politics much so I don’t have much to say on her as a person. I do know that she has had quite the impact on Scotland over the last five or so years, so it’s not surprise I have had attention from my name, whether it be bad or good! (usually bad I must say). 

I think if my family hadn’t moved from Scotland to England, I probably would have more of an opinion and been more in the know on her policies and what she stands for.  

There’s also no doubt in my mind that I would have received double the amount of comments on my name! 

One thing that’s a bit controversial to hear from a Nicola Sturgeon is that I was actually against Scottish independence when the referendum happened. With all my family living in Scotland, I didn’t want them to leave the United Kingdom.  

I personally can’t wait for this pandemic to be over. At the moment people are hanging on my namesake’s every word and as a result it’s bringing more attention my way.  

Luckily, when life is normal, I have never had any issues. She’s probably not the best person I could share a name with as she gets a lot of criticism, but I am pretty sure it could be worse (Boris Johnson)!  

I have definitely never considered changing my name – it’s not that deep.  

I’ve personally have never met Nicola Sturgeon and probably never will. It’s never really been on my list of things I would love to happen, but I do think it would be quite interesting.  

I don’t even follow her on social media – maybe I could tweet her saying ‘nice name’ and see what happens!  

Hello, My Name Is…

It’s not easy having the same name as someone, or something, famous.

In Metro.co.uk’s weekly Hello, My Name Is… series, we’ll hear the funny, surprising and frankly mundane stories of people whose parents really didn’t know what they were getting their children into.

Email [email protected] if you would like to get involved.

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