As a teenager, I ditched my hated last name. As an adult, I’ve learned to love it | Evelyn Rose Worman

They called me wormy' in the playground - but I've come to see that while it isn't pretty, it's mine

Wormy! Wormy! Come here, Wormy!" I'm seven years old, arms wrapped across my legs like a protective shield, while a group of older kids tease me in the playground with the unflattering nickname that would plague my childhood.

A moniker derived from my surname, Worman (pronounced War-mon," not Worm-man," although such nuances eluded my classmates in the 90s), the simple act of rescuing a worm from being unceremoniously cut in half would earn me the unfortunate title for nearly a decade. How clever they must have felt when they put two and two together, and how infuriating it was for me. From then on, I hated my rare surname and the joking that came with it.

Evelyn Rose Worman is a writer who has previously worked in advertising