Two of my dearest friends are having their first baby. The wife, has asked me what to name the child, a girl. Like all unabashed narcissist out there, I offer her my own. Mine has always felt alien to me, but it might just suit someone else – someone less feisty, I imagine, who looks a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow in Great Expectations or that girl whose swimsuit pictures flood the screen whenever you type in my first name.

I have a Chinese name, known only to close friends or very observant people, which I’ve almost never used. X, my friend whom I play translator for, wanted to refer to me by it, but I told her, “Please don’t. I won’t even know who you’re calling when you say that name.”

I can write it out, my squiggles looking like the scratchings of a chicken looking for worms. It’s the least I can do after attending two year’s worth of Chinese language tuition as a child. Amanda has yet to progress to that stage and doesn’t respond to her Chinese name either. I’m beginning to think that like me, her Chinese name will only be for show.

So what inspired me to name Amanda, Amanda? This was some 8 years ago, back in the days when we used to rent a house with 20 chipped tiles in the kitchen, covered over with a woven mat, had a microwave my one-time cleaner said was the cheapest model she had ever seen – mine cost $20 – and lived from pay-check to pay-check because His Royal Highness was putting his sister through university and subsidising half of his hometown because his father loved, and still does, to live large.

My mother had taught me that Chinese believe no 3 generations are rich, just as no 5 generations are poor; that each generation improves on the one before it. However, my living conditions with His Royal Highness, the worst of any in our immediate circle of friends, was far from an improvement for me. I spent the first 8 years of my life in a middle-class, white-collared, neighbourhood, in a terrace house with 4 good-sized bedrooms and 3 attached bathrooms, a huge backyard that I played badminton with my brother occasionally in, or sailed newspaper boats down the drain on rainy days.

What I wanted was a better childhood for my unborn child, as befitting her father’s yet unrealised earning capacity, especially after the one-time cleaner snickered, “And your husband is a doctor, ah?” pointing to my sad, second-hand, no-frills-model, microwave.

Being the typical woman that I am – all women being to some degree aspirational creatures – I latched onto the idea of naming my unborn child after someone whose lifestyle, rather than life, I admire. After all, there are many people whose lifetime achievements are highly laudable – Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, being two of them – but do we want starvation or prolonged detention for our children? Me thinks not. Better to aim lower and look around us to people who enjoy all the comforts of this world.

My untrained eyes happened upon Amanda’s namesake, then an intern at the country hospital His Royal Highness was at. So, why her? If I wanted to name my daughter after a mere doctor, surely there are countless others to choose from. What great attribute did she have for me to want to name my first born, and as it turns out, only child, after her?

She had an extremely good life; a charmed life by all accounts. 

Hearing this, someone once scoffed at me and said, “But that’s like naming my child Bill in the hopes of him being as rich as Gates.”

“But is your surname Gates?” I asked the person. “Amanda’s surname is the same as the other Amanda’s surname. Her father too is a doctor, like the other Amanda’s.”

I almost didn’t name Amanda, Amanda, because one of His Royal Highness’ friends told us that his ex, then also pregnant, was going to also name her unborn child Amanda. “Perhaps you might consider naming yours Mandy, instead,” she said.

Why should I have to change whatever I was going to name my child? This was after all, my child. However, it did give me some food for thought so I went back to the drawing board for a while, mulling over my other options.

“How about Phoebe?” I asked my mother.

“Phoebe sounds feeble,” she said. “We don’t want feeble.”

No, we don’t. As I said, woman are aspirational. My mother named me after her divorce lawyer, then, one of the few female barristers in the U.K. My namesake won her the custody of my elder sisters.

I bought a baby book for $5.99 from one of the bargain bins around Clayton, where we lived. I only needed 1 decent name, but what the heck, I might as well peruse all 10 thousand of them. You can tell I never do anything by halves.

In the end I went back to Amanda because we bumped into her namesake in the middle of Melbourne. She too was dining at the same Chinese restaurant, sporting diamond earrings the size of my middle fingernail. She greeted us as though we were chums and remarked on my heaving belly. This must be a sign, I thought to myself. Of all the people to run into in Melbourne, a city of over 4 million, we run into her. Amanda it shall be then.

Six days after Amanda’s birth, we were granted permanent residence (PR). Considering we’d been conned by a PR agent, moved to New Zealand and back, and reapplied for PR again, this was a huge coup for us. Eight months later, we bought our first home and two months after that, His Royal Highness got into advance training, just when he thought he was going to have to wait another year, especially with the build-up of eligible candidates; there being 1 position going for every 5 applicants.

I am convinced Amanda brought us luck; she is in most respects luckier than either of us. But her father also says insists that he has worked very hard to get where he is, a point I do not dispute. The thing about luck is that half of it is given and the other half is self-made. Either only gets you so far.

It’s like writing. Of all the books you see on the shelves, why are some best-sellers and others not? Is it the talent of the author or is it luck that has propelled E L James Fifty Shade of Grey – by most accounts, a middling novel – to its top spot on best-sellers lists? A cursory glance will tell you it has numerous competitors, others much better written.

This is luck and as far as names goes, the name Amanda has been lucky for us. It might not be lucky for someone else. Having said that, the greatest luck is being blessed with a healthy, happy, well-adjusted child. Everything else is a bonus.