What's in a Name? : Friendship, Identity and History in Modern Multicultural Britain

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.