In magic, names are important. Magic users hardly ever use their 'real' names, because names are power to other magic users. It's the reason why, with people I care about, I tend to slide into nicknames; the part of me that's a magic user is trying to 'protect' them by using a name that isn't theirs. Not that there's actually danger - it's pretty much a magic user thing, but it's the way I was brought up. So I'm a bit like a cat that way - I tend to use my own name for people instead of their own, except if they ask me otherwise.

My name isn't the name I was given when I was born - my birth name was Gemile Szardos, but I got taken away from my family and that name got used against me by the man who had me: whenever he wanted to control me magically, he'd use my real name. Otherwise he'd call me "Blossom". Ugh.

When I got taken away from him and left at the hospital, I was given the name "Amanda Sefton" by Romany and that was the name I kept growing up. Even after finding my birth family again, I kept using Amanda, since that was the name I was used to. When my mother disowned me, I changed my name legally to Amanda Sefton - it's who I am, and who I'll always be.