Some friends once came across a social media account with my photograph and a name they didn't recognise. They thought it might be fake.
It wasn't. It was mine.
The account was @SASterling72. I had to reassure them that the woman in the photograph was really me.
S.A. Sterling is the name I publish under. It's on the covers of my books and at the bottom of what I write here. I chose it myself, which is something most of us never get to do with a name.
But long before I chose one, I had already spent most of my life answering to several others.
My mother called me la Sandra. In northern Italy, we often put the article in front of a woman's first name. It's familiar, a little bit local, the way you talk about someone the whole village already knows.
My father preferred Alessandra. The whole thing, all four syllables.
My sisters call me Ale. Unless they want to make a point, in which case I'm suddenly Alessandra again. And every so often one of them brings back Sandra, just to tease me.
I have loved all of these names. I still do.
I've always liked Alessandra. I like how elegant it is. I like that it comes from a Greek name associated with defending and protecting. When someone tells me it's a beautiful name, I still feel a little proud, as if I'd had something to do with it.
Ale is what people call me when they know me well.
Then there was the surname.
Where I grew up, Santin meant something. My father and my uncle were known through the family business, and people knew the business. Sometimes they recognised the surname before they recognised me.
Ah, sei una Santin!
Ah, you're one of the Santins.
It wasn't really about me. It placed me. It tied me to a shop, to relatives, to a family the town already had an opinion about.
My childhood friends sometimes joked that for someone named Santin, I had very little of a saint in me. They weren't entirely wrong. I was forever getting into mischief.
But the part of Santin that matters most to me now isn't the shop. It's my sisters.
There are four of us, and I'm the eldest. We were le sorelle Santin, the Santin sisters. We still are. Our husbands and partners know not to mess with that.
Then my name started to travel.
In Russia I was Sasha. Also Sanya, Sashulya, Sashenka, and occasionally Aleksandra. Russian is generous with affectionate forms, and I liked every one of them. They became part of my life there.
In England and Germany, Alessandra sounded different in other people's mouths. Slightly rearranged. Still mine.
In America, I became Alexandria.
Lino found this very funny.
"Yes," he'd say. "Of Egypt!"
After a while I started introducing myself as Alexandra, or Ally. It was easier. I wasn't ashamed of Alessandra. I was just tired of saying it, repeating it, and explaining how to pronounce it. Lino found that funny too.
And then there was Gato.
I took my husband's surname as part of the practical business of married life in America. We went where his military career took us. I used Gato for work, bank accounts, documents, and all the paperwork that seemed to follow us from one place to another.
I hardly thought about it. It wasn't a loss, and it wasn't a statement. It was one more name I answered to.
Recently I read Aurora Tamigio's novel Il cognome delle donne. I haven't stopped thinking about its title.
Even the surname a woman keeps usually came to her from her father. Look at a family tree, and most of the surnames follow the men.
So I think of my mother.
She was Gabriella Zanette, and she was proud to be a Zanette. She kept her surname. People sometimes called her Signora Santin anyway.
And I think of my son.
When Anthony was born, he became a Gato. Looking back, I might have liked to give him both names, Santin and Gato. It's a small regret, something I notice now that I didn't think to notice then.
But Lino and I chose his first name together. We named him after my maternal grandfather, Antonio, and Lino's Portuguese uncle, António. We also wanted a name that would be easy to use wherever he might live.
Years later, when I began writing for publication, I found myself choosing another name. This time, for my own work.
I wanted a pen name.
Part of it was privacy. Part of it was that I wanted a name that didn't immediately identify me as Italian. I was writing in English, for English-speaking readers, and I wanted a name that would sit easily on a book cover without a pronunciation guide.
I spent hours on it. Looking things up. Saying names out loud. Crossing them out. There was no flash of inspiration. It was more like trying on coats.
I chose Sterling because I liked its sound, and because of what it suggested to me: something dependable, genuine, of good quality.
And then the initials.
S for Santin. A for Alessandra.
I went looking for a name that would give me a little distance from my everyday self, and I built it from the two names I had carried the longest.
These days I'm not hiding behind it. I write about my life and my family, and more and more readers know me as Alessandra too. S.A. Sterling became the name of my work. It didn't replace anything.
The first book with that name on it was Ride On!, my biography of the Paralympic champion Dame Sarah Storey.
Five copies arrived at my door. I took the box into my office, opened it, and picked one up. I would later give all five copies to close friends and family, but first I stood there holding one.
I was proud. I was also, for a moment, unsure. The name on the cover was mine, and it looked unfamiliar.
Then I said to myself:
You did it, Ale. You did it. You did it, S.A. Sterling.
At the top of my blog posts, you might see Alessandra Gato. At the bottom, I sign S.A. Sterling.
Lino sometimes calls me S.A. Sterling, mostly to make me laugh. My sons call me Mom.
And on our weekly video call, one of my sisters says Ale, and I answer without thinking.