When her little friends asked her what her name was, her father replied that it was Conchita - his diminutive for Maria de la Concepción. Con-what? they would ask again, aware, apparently, that con in French is a fool, an idiot. So her parents started calling her Maria, which from the little girl's lips soon began to sound like Maya. Maya! exclaimed her father. It's perfect. It means the greatest illusion on earth. So Maya it was from then on - Maya Walter.
Given a perfectly good American name like Ann, she has deliberately chosen to label herself Anya after a long-dead great-grandmother, and put jam in her tea.
Before he died her father had run a nursery just outside the town. He loved trees so much he'd even named his two daughters and one son after them: Willow, Ashley and Oak.