What's in a name?

Hey You,

So as my blog uses my burlesque name I figured I would take you on a tour of my many names and where they came from.

1. Charlotte Louise- birth name, pretty standard I was told that my parents gave me a name that could be shortened in to a boys name i.e Charles or Charlie, which fits with my sisters name that can be shortened to George. I think they were trying to tell us something! As a child I did not mind my name now days I often forget it is mine as I use so many others! I have heard from those in to numerology my name is rather fitting for me to, so that's nice :)

2. Charlie/ Charlie kid- Mainly used by my family members throughout my life and used by one or two of my childhood friends, an ex-boyfriend of mine used to love the name Charlie yet rarely called me it in person.

4. Lottie/Lottie Lou/ Lou-  A version of my name I was determined to give my self when I learnt of its existence at age 14. It sounded much more quaint and feminine than Charlie, although never being quaint and or particularly feminine my self I thought it may change my persona. I began introducing my self as Lottie to new people and it eventually caught on.

During my college years I went through a cyber/rainbow/Lolita goth phase where everything had to be cute and colourful (see image below). During this time Lottie was not cute enough so I shortened my middle name to Lou and added that to my nick name. It caught on with a small handful of people, my mother I think is the only person who uses it. this was also a contender for my first burlesque name but after my first burlesque lesson I was told "it is very cheesecake" meaning cute/comedy and was put off the idea. In hindsight it was the look I was going for but never the less it was probably better to give my self a whole new persona.

Although Lottie Lou did not really catch on I do have one close childhood friend who shortened it completely and now simply calls me Lou. It is short, sweet and special and is something just me and her share which is lovely :)

5. Lollita La Rouge- My first real burlesque name, spelt wrong due to my dyslexia never put right because it made me stand out. Often very funny when postmen delivered the post to Miss La Rouge we had a good giggle.

The Lollita part was inspired in some part from Lottie but also from my interest in Japanese Lolita fashion. Lolita of course is the title of Vladimir Nabokov's novel from 1955, a rather uncomfortable story of a paedophile step farther and a young highly sexualised 12 year old girl. 

Now first and for most child sexual abuse is excessively wrong, I currently volunteer for a number of charities supporting victims of this horrible crime, I figure I best get that out there before you all go bat shit crazy at me. 

However I did also choose the name, in part, because of that book. As a teenager I worked in the field of sexual health, I have always been comfortable with the concept of sex and sexuality, finding the British outlook on the issue completely backwards. It is OK to eat your breakfast cereal watching hundreds of people die in war torn countries yet we can't celebrate or discuss people joing together in love, the creation of new life the miracle that is sex? I know it is a taboo subject and I do not expect it to be completely open for discussion, it shouldn't be but neither should it be repressed to the extent it is. I am THAT type of philosophy student who, like Socrates, likes to mess with people's perception of the world, I like to shake things up a bit and get people thinking, instead of people just flowing through life accepting their fate, for me the name Lolita reflects that attitude, shaking things up a bit challenging social norms. It also means something cute but not so inicent and at the time it was how a saw myself. I am the eternaly baby faced and as much as I wanted to be treated like an adult through my teenage years I still looked like a child, Lollita was my stage persona a baby faced girl who had a wicked streak exactly the person I wanted to be.

La Rouge came about as I had coloured my hair a bright red and I decided the contrast of the sophisticated fiery red head with the cute but wicked Lollita would work well together.

6. Miss Sticky Sweet- After three years of finding my self at university, setting up a burlesque society and using the stage for silent protest against societal norms I really felt like I had got something out of my system. I needed to be Lollita when I was but now I was growing up and settling down, the wild child that was now preferred a night in watching youtube vids rather than shaking up social norms, I wear brown now!!! I did not want to give burlesque up, it is still super fun, I just wanted a chance to take things slower, be more precise and make a clear split between my on and off stage personalities. So I sat down and tried to figure out what was my unique selling point, what separated my acts from the others? It turned out I had a habit of covering my self or the audience in a variety of substances, I covered my self in cookie crumbs, fake blood, fake snow ect.. I also realised that I did fit in to the cheesecake genre, I was not "sexy" on stage and I did not want to be I wanted to be silly and light hearted. Burlesque in its original meaning is to make a mockery of  something, I wanted to mock a culture that said sexy had to adhere to a certain set of rules, a culture that said bombing other countries and page 3 models where OK to be in our morning paper but breast feeding and nipple tassels were to risky for the light of day. Miss Sticky Sweet was born, obviously the name draws inspiration from the Def Leppard  song "Pour Some Sugar on Me" a classic and a perfect anthem for someone like Miss Sticky Sweet. 

Miss Sticky Sweet's tag line "She's One Hot Mess" is a fun play on words signifying she is "hot" and "messy" 
in a semi sexy way but also that she is actually not sexy and in fact a bit of a clown. It is also a come back to an individual who at the beginning of my burlesque days disagreed with many of my choices on character, styling and even what I wore to rehearse my acts in. Often remarking "here comes hot mess" when I would enter a room. It is me saying your right I am a hot mess in more ways than one and I love it!

7. Dottie- the combination of mine and my partners name used when ever we do things together we use Dottie palace for example to describe our home together <3 firefly is also a cute pet name he has given me.

Some names that never caught on in the physical world

1. Darkcloudes_filldasky- A screen name used for the social networking site vampirefreaks, pre Facebook and possibly even myspace. As you can see I was a very morbid teenager, note the "da" instead of "the" though possibly an attempt at appearing more gangster more likely just because the name was to long for the website. Vampirefreaks will also hold some very fond memories in my heart, it was one of the first social networking sites I accessed, it included group pages, a profile page  and a space to write a minni blog called a diary. Many if my Diary entries went like this:

Slit my wrists and I bleed Ink
What I say is not pretty it is not pink

P.S still single why am I single?

Well past lottie I suggest you take a good hard look at your self, that is why you are single! I did however get together with my ex fiancée on that sight so some how it worked. I did use a social network site before VF called not cool club which was very early on and was more of a forum I think I used the same screen name but it is so long ago I can't remember.

2. Punk_sandwicht- My very first MSN screen name punk as that is how I saw my self at the time, sandwicht because a kid at school had spent the afternoon shouting abuse in my face. "you fucking goth" me and some friends decided to mess with him by telling him we were not goths but sandwiches, a new sub-culture I was a cheese sandwich someone else a tunamayo ect.. we had him fooled for a number of weeks. I then also wanted to add a "t" as in "witch" because it was around the time I was discovering my Pagan path. My father who is as dyslexic as me however typed out the time and thus became punk_sandwicht

3.Dorris Delay- during the myspace area and my first spark of interest in the burlesque world, I thought Dorris Delay was a clever play on the name Doris Day, using the word Delay as in Delay peddle for a guitar. she would of been a punk rockabilly character but she never got off the ground. Also spelt wrong as that is kind of my thing!

4. Lollie Rocks- A musical venture that consisted of me taking a singing lesson from a very eccentric hippie woman, writing two awful songs and publishing them under the title of lollie rocks on myspace (page is still up unfortunately!) inspired by the jack off jill track "lollie rot"

5. Miss Piggy in Pink- Used very rarely derived from the fact I had pink hair, a piggy noes and a deep admiration for the Muppet in question. Only ever used in person my little sister who would call me miss piggy when I was getting on her nerves

6. Hipunk Emoth- a phrase coined by some friends trying to describe what subculture I fell in to Hippy Punk Emo Goth was as specific as people got!


well there you go lovelies a comprehensive tour through my many identities, I think for the most part I have settled on my names now however in just over 12 months time I am due to be married which means a whole new name and also a new identity as a wife so it will be interesting to see how that transpires. Hope this was interesting enough and not too long!

speak soon darlings xx