I received an email from a friend 18 months ago that read, “Looks like you’ve been getting up to no good in Iraq.” It was a joke, and it’s not the first one I’ve heard. In fact, the fuss around my first name has been intense for about a year.

I always loved my name. When I was growing up in Devon in the 1990s, it seemed so special: nine out of 10 times when I introduced myself, I would get a positive reaction and people would ask where it was from. I would tell them my parents stumbled upon it before realising the connection to the Egyptian goddess. I’ve never met anyone else called Isis before. It was what made me different.

Now I dread telling people my name. No one says anything too bad, usually, but it’s the fact that people have to mention Islamic State as soon as they meet me that gets to me. It’s a bad way to start.

I’m trying not to let it affect me, but I can’t help it. You hear your name and you get this visceral reaction. Reading the news, I am bombarded with headlines like The War On Isis and The Case For Bombing Isis, and it feels as if they’re talking about me. Funnily enough, my sister is called Sersei, like the Game Of Thrones character Cersei, and she has been getting a lot of flak about it, too. But not on the same scale.

I would be so relieved if the name Daesh finally caught on – it’s what I use when talking about them, and I insist that people around me use it, too. I just want people to remember the positivity that my name used to have, and reclaim it from Daesh – they don’t deserve to be called Isis.

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