Imelda is one of those names that I used to think was commonplace, because I’ve known it for as long as I can remember.
Only once I grew a better sense of name popularity did I realise how rare it is (undeservedly, in my opinion!).
I knew Imelda as a legendary family member, the wife of my grandmother’s brother Peter. She would have been born around 1915. Sadly Peter was killed in the war, and they didn’t have any surviving children. She kept in touch with my granny for the rest of her life. I never met her, but sometimes her relics surface among the Old Family Things in my parents’ house: photos, letters, even a leather suitcase with her initials on. Glimpses of the start of a branch of the family tree that might have been.
To me, Imelda feels full of Roaring Twenties glamour, like Zelda, crossed with the sweet naivety of Imogen… though I do appreciate it will read differently for those with connections to the Philippines, and its associations with former First Lady Imelda Marcos.
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