Little My

Little My (Swedish: Lilla My – literally: “little mu”) is a character in the Moomin series of books by Tove Jansson. She first appears in the fourth book, The Exploits of Moominpappa (1950). She is a small, determined and fiercely independent Mymble. When she wants something done, she does it straight away. She is very aggressive, mischievous to a fault and totally disrespectful, but can be a good friend when she wants to. She has a brash personality. She is the Mymble’s Daughter’s younger sister. She is eventually adopted by the Moomin family.

The name Little My originated from the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet: μ (Mu) – transliterated as my and pronounced [my] in Swedish. In the metric system, lowercase mu μ, meaning “one-millionth”, represents the prefix “micro-“, from the Greek μικρός (mikrós), meaning “small”.

The popularity of the character has led to the personal name My being borne by more than 7600 women and girls in Sweden.

Personality

Little My is a very abrasive person, and she almost always succeeds in persuading her listener or discussion partner. She’s a nonconventional debater, as she does not put much emphasis on logic and reason, instead she uses the emotions of herself and others to convince them of her argument. She has four ways she mostly uses to win. She makes a personal attack on the person she is having the discussion with or about, she state her own nonducumented conclusions she exaggerate the argument of her opponents to ridicule them, and she uses nonverbal effects to show the inferiority of her opponent.