My name is EL·LI.

Actually, my name is not El·li. My name is Viktoria. I am a German singer/songwriter and pianist, currently living in London.

So why exactly do you call yourself El·li?!
There's a looong story about me and my name and me not liking my name...actually about me hating my name. When I was younger, I had always wondered why the hell my parents just didn't give me a 'normal' name. Like Julia. Or Anna. Or Christina. I even thought about changing my name (no joke!) as soon as I was old enough to decide those kind of things for myself. But by the time I turned 18, I actually thought my name was pretty cool, so I decided to keep it.


You still didn't say anything about El·li!
Right. So as I said, I am a singer and pianist and when I first started performing, I just called myself Viktoria - of course I did, it's my name. And I always felt like it is pretty suitable for a classical pianist that I was at that time. But then I started singing and my musical style moved from classical towards Jazz, Funk, Pop, Soul...and then again I did not want to be called Viktoria anymore. To me, it was too long and although I think it sounds pretty elegant, it also sounds kind of arrogant. So I needed to come up with another name. What's the most obvious thing when you're thinking of a new name? Exactly, using your middle name - given you have one.

My middle name is Elisabeth. Not that big of a help, since it is exactly as long as Viktoria and not only does it sound a bit arrogant too, but also kind of old-fashioned - at least in German. So it needed some modification and I ended up calling my, let's say 'singer-self' Elli.

Ok, but what about that dot in the middle?
A couple of years passed by before I moved to Barcelona, Spain. Living there for several years I found out, that the Catalan language has something called an 'ela geminada', which is written like this: l·l. Now, catalan phontics can be a bit tricky, but basically, it is just a 'double-l' or 'long l' and actually pronounced like an l (unlike ll, which is pronounced more like a y). But anyway. So besides the fact that I obviously love Barcelona, the Catalan culture and also the Catalan language, I thought it looked pretty cool, so I decided to spell my 'singing-self name' from now on with an 'ela geminada'.

So that's about it!
You might wonder why I wrote such a long text about a name that isn't even my real name. But you know, I really s*ck at introducing myself and I still think you got to know me a bit through this story.

Let me know if you also ever struggled with your name, I'd love to hear your stories!

EL·LI
xx