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What's in a Name?

My mother was a very impressionable lady and very easily led.  When she gave birth to me in Walton Hospital, Liverpool in 1935 she and Dad had not decided on a name. 

'What is the baby's name mother?' asked the nurse.

'Well...I ...we haven't actually decided yet,' my Mum answered.

'Call him Carl,' whispered the nurse, 'it's a lovely name.'

'OK,' said my Mum.

Later, when my Father came to visit, he took hold of my wrist and spotted the name.

'What's THIS!' he shouted - it's a bloody GERMAN name!'

After the visit he hurried to the Registration Office and named

me the most English name he could think of which was George.

As a staunch communist, and opponent of Nazi Germany, a Teutonic name was not exactly flavour of the month. My mother however always secretly called me Carl, at least to the age of five, by which time the family diminutive 'Jud' or had taken over, and it was this diminutive that has followed me throughout life.

Apart from people calling out my name for the school register, or in a doctor's waiting room etc, I have never been called George.

Most people don't even know that my name is actually George.

As a footnote, it later transpired that the maternity nurse was in love with a very handsome German doctor who also worked at Walton Hospital. Can you guess what his name was?  Yes, you're right - it was Carl.

The is a good example of how little snippets from family history can be lost forever.  If I hadn't been thinking of my Mum right now I would never have remembered the tale. I would never have written it.  It will go into my Florilegium for the benefit of my born and unborn descendants.