“The great William Shakespeare said, "What's in a name?" He also said, "Call me Billy one more time and I will stab you with this ink quill.”

“Call me Billy one more time, and I will stab you with this ink quill”

“She waited with Billy Slick while Carrot went on the errand, and for something to say, she said, ‘Billy Slick doesn’t sound much like a goblin name?’ Billy made a face. ‘Too right! Granny calls me Of the Wind Regretfully Blown. What kind of name is that, I ask you? Who’s going to take you seriously with a name like that? This is modern times, right?’ He looked at her defiantly, and she thought: and so one at a time we all become human – human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls... the melting pot melts in one direction only, and so we make progress.”

“To call that writing, madam, is an insult to quills and ink across the world.”

“Mum said no one has ever called me by my first name so I've always assumed that even as a baby they could tell I wasn't an Arabella, a name with loops and flourishes in black-inked calligraphy; a name that contains within it girls called Bella or Bells or Belle - so many beautiful possibilities. No, from the start I was clearly a Beatrice, sensible and unembellished in Times New Roman, with no one hiding inside.”

“One time her father told her Shakespeare was really an Arab. 'Just look at his name: It's an Anglicization of Sheikh Zubayr,' he said with a straight face.”